BY  ER  SCIDMORE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


/  ■" 


C- 


■v 


UMiVEUiSlTY  of  r.f. 
aT 
LCC  ANGELES 


Winter  India 


THE  SACRED  BO-TEEE  AND  THE  DIAMOIvD  THRONE,  EUDDHA-GAYA. 

THE  CKNTER  OF  THE  IINJVERHE  ANl)  THE  VERANDA  OK  KNOWLEDGE. 


Winter  India 


By 

Eliza  Ruhamah  Scidmore 

Author  of  "Jinrikisha  Days  in  Japan,"  "Java:  The  Garden  of  the  East,' 
and  "China:  The  Long-Lived  Empire" 


New  York 
The  Century  Co. 

1903 


"■-    <^-»'     ^    >4»' 


Copyright,  1903,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Published  March,  IQ03 


THE  OE  VINNE  PRE89 


^\  V 


/ 


TO 

CAROLINE    TOUSEY    BURK.AM 

THE    FRIEND    OF 

AN    INDIAN    WINTER 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  On  India's  Coral  Strand 3 

II  Trichinopoli  and  Tanjore 21 

III  With  Chidambram's  Brahmans 34 

IV  For  the  Honor  and  Glory  of  Shiva  ....  51 
V  Madras  and  the  Seven  Pagodas 64 

VI  Madras  and  Calcutta 80 

VII  Calcutta  in  Christmas  Week 89 

VIII  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World   ....  105 

IX  Mahabodhi,  the  Place  of  Great  Intelligence  116 

X  The  Sacred  Bo-tree 133 

XI  The  Greatest  Sight  in  the  World    ....  149 

XII  Benares 165 

XIII  LucKNOW 177 

XIV  Agra 185 

XV  Akbar,  the  Greatest  Mogul  of  Them  All      .  202 

XVI  Delhi 213 

XVII  Old  Delhi 227 

XVIII  Lahore 239 

XIX  The  End  of  the  Indian  Empire 256 

XX  Through  Ehtber  Pass  with  the  Caravans      .  276 

XXI  Amritsar 298 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII  Simla 312 

XXIII  Alwar 323 

XXIV  GrWALIOR 335 

XXV  Jeypore       344 

XXVI  Mount  Abu  and  Ahmedabad 357 

XXVII  The  Caves  op  Ellora  and  Karli 369 

XXVIII  Bombay 383 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The    Sacred    Bo-tree    and    the    Diamond    Throne, 
Buddha-Gaya Frontispiece. 

PAGE 

Tamil  Children 5 

The  Great  Gopura,  Madura  Temple       13 

Detail  op  Gopura,  Madura  Temple 19 

Indian  Lotas 27 

Gopura  and  Tank,  Chidambram  Temple 43 

Pattu  Thacheadar 57 

Monolithic  Temples  at  Mahabalipur 67 

The  Village  Street       77 

The  Ruins  and  Pagodas  of  Pagan 91 

From  photograph  by  Bourne  &  Shepard. 

The  Fort  at  Mandalay 91 

Vases  from  the  Sakya  Stupa  at  Piprawah    ....  121 

The  Sarcophagus  in  the  Cave  .     .     .    .■ 121 

The  Ekka 124 

The  Great  Temple  at  Buddha-Gaya  and  the  Sacred 

Bo-tree       127 

Asoka's  Rail,  Buddha-Gaya 143 

The  "Women's  Ghat,  Benares 151 

The  Burning-Ghat,  Benares 159 

Fakirs  at  Benares 169 

On  the  Ganges , 173 


X  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Taj  Mahal     . 187 

Private  Audience-Hall  and  Jasmine  Tower  in  Agra 

Palace.     Taj  Mahal  in  Distance 197 

RLausoleum  op  Selim  Chisti,  Fatehpur  Sikri      .     .     .  207' 

Kutab  minar 219 

Detail  op  Kutab  minar 231 

Street  Dancers,  Delhi 237 

The  Roofs  and  Balconies  of  Lahore 245 

School-boys  in  the  Vazir  Khan  Mosque,  Lahore  .     .  251 

Afghan  Falconer,  Peshawar 251 

The  Mad  Molla,  Peshawar 269 

Caravans  in  the  Khyber  Pass 287 

The  Golden  Temple,  Amritsar 301 

Window  at  Gwalior       307 

The  Hall  of  Audience,  Jeypore 315 

The  Old  City  op  Amber,  from  the  Top  of  the  De- 
serted Palace 325 

The  Deserted  Palace,  from  the  Lake,  Amber   .     .     .  331 

The  Hall  of  Mirrors 337 

Interior  op  Jain  Temple,  Mount  Abu 349 

Ceiling  of  Jain  Temple,  Mount  Abu 359 

Tracery  Window,  Ahmedabad 365 

Rock-cut  Temple  at  Ellora 371 

The  Great  Cave-temple,  Karli 379 

"Please  Buy  My  NiEa^ASs" 387 


INTRODUCTION 

>T  can  hardly  be  said  with  literalness 
I  that  one  enjoys  India.  I  had  not  ex- 
pected to  enjoy  it,  and  it  proved  itself, 
despite  its  color  and  pictiiresqueness, 
quite  as  melancholy  and  depressing 
a  country  as  I  had  thought  it  would  be;  but  so  ab- 
sorbingly interesting,  so  packed  with  problems,  so 
replete  with  miracles  accomplished  by  alien  rule,  so 
ripe  with  possibilities,  that  one  soon  overlooked  the 
unnecessary  hardships  and  discomforts  of  travel — 
travel  as  plain  and  primitive  as  in  the  Klondike,  or 
as  if  the  country  had  been  conquered  only  within 
this  decade. 

The  surprises,  the  contrasts,  and  the  contradic- 
tions administer  perpetual  shock  and  mental  stimu- 
lus, and  the  unexpected  continually  confronts  one. 
Never  have  I  suffered  with  cold  as  in  India.  Not  a 
snake  did  I  see  or  hear  of  in  the  cold-weather,  tourist 
season,  save  in  zoological  gardens  or  snake-charmers' 
baskets,  and  the  tigers  were  likewise  caged. 

There  are  so  many  Indias  that  no  one  person  can 
know  them  all,  and  the  Winter  India  which  the 
tourist  sees  during  the  cold-weather  weeks  is  not  the 
real  one  which  the  Anglo-Indian  knows  the  year 
around.     The  military  man,  the  civilian  officer,  the 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

missionary,  planter,  and  merchant  has  each  his  own 
India  and  view-point;  and  the  British  visitor,  who 
is  passed  from  home  to  home  by  the  endless  chain 
of  Anglo-Indian  hospitality,  sees  and  thinks  differ- 
ently from  the  other  tourists  who  suffer  the  drear 
hotels,  the  dak  banglas,  and  the  railway-station 
rooms. 

The  worst  hotels  in  the  world  are  those  of  India, 
and  a  British  traveler  has  truthfully  written :  ' '  You 
will  enjoy  your  traveling  in  India  if  you  have  so 
many  friends  there  that  you  need  never  put  foot 
in  a  hotel.  If  you  have  not,  you  had  better  go  some- 
where else."  Each  winter  the  peninsula  holds  a 
growing  number  of  surprised  and  resentful  tourists, 
who,  whether  they  land  at  Bombay  or  Calcutta,  usu- 
ally conclude  that  the  shortest  route  across  India 
is  the  best  one.  One  month  or  six  weeks  is  the 
average  stay;  and  very  few  tourists  ever  go  to 
the  hills  for  the  summer  and  come  back  to  the  plains 
for  a  second  cold-weather  season  of  travel.  The 
average  tourist  sacrifices  itineraries  without  com- 
punction, and  lives  to  warn  away  aged  and  invalid 
tourists  and  to  convince  those  with  weak  lungs  and 
impaired  digestions  that  death  waits  in  Indian 
hotels. 

The  glamour  of  the  East  does  not  often  or  for  long 
enthrall  one  while  touring  Hindustan.  Later  it  as- 
serts itself,  reveals  its  haunting  charm;  and  then, 
be  it  months  or  years  afterward,  he  "hears  the  East 
a-callin'."  He  forgets  the  ice  in  the  bath-tubs  at 
Agra  and  Delhi,  the  bitterly  cold  nights  in  drafty, 
dusty,  springless  cars,  and  in  visions  he  sees  only 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

"the  sunshine  an'  the  palm-trees  an'  the  tinkly 
temple  bells,"  the  brilliantly  costumed  people,  and 
the  miracles  of  architecture  scattered  so  lavishly 
from  end  to  end  of  the  empire. 

A  new  India  for  the  tourist  will  date  from  the 
g:reat  durbar  at  Delhi  in  1903,  and  India,  which  has 
been  a  winter  preserve  for  visiting  English,  will  be 
virtually  discovered  and  opened  to  a  wider  clientele, 
made  as  possible  and  fit  for  luxurious  travel  as 
Egypt.  Equally  this  day  of  cheap  travel  and  cheap 
living  will  vanish  as  completely  as  on  the  Nile. 

For  one  to  announce  that  he  will  spend  a  winter 
in  India  is  hardly  more  definite  or  precise  than  to 
say  that  he  will  winter  in  Europe.  India  is  a  very 
large  country,— several  large  countries, — since  it 
equals  in  area  and  population  all  of  Europe  outside 
of  Russia;  and  one  travels  the  nineteen  hundred 
miles  of  its  extent  from  south  to  north  through  as 
many  political  divisions  as  there  are  great  divisions 
of  Europe,  and  differing  as  greatly  in  climate,  phy- 
sical features,  and  inhabitants.  The  Spaniard  does 
not  differ  more  from  the  Laplander  than  the  sooty 
Tamil  from  the  blue-eyed  Afridi,  the  weak  Bengali 
from  the  fighting  Rajput  or  the  fierce  Sikh.  Besides 
the  thirteen  provinces  under  British  rule,  there  are 
six  hundred  and  fifty  native  states;  but  only  two 
hundred  of  them  are  of  great  importance,  since  na- 
tive states  range  in  size  from  Hyderabad,  the  size  of 
Italy,  to  single  villages  in  Kathiawar  and  tiny  valleys 
in  the  Himalayan  foot-hills,  empires  two  miles 
square. 

The  census  of  1901  gave  a  total  of  294,360,356  in- 


xiv  INTEODUCTION 

habitants— five  times  as  many  Hindus  as  Moham- 
medans, and  one  hundred  and  nine  times  as  many 
natives  as  English.  The  fourteen  distinct  races  fol- 
low eight  forms  of  religious  belief,  and  speak  some 
two  hundred  and  forty  languages  and  three  hundred 
dialects ;  all  legislative  acts  are  published  in  English, 
Persian,  Bengali,  and  Hindustani— and  then  only 
one  man  in  ten  can  read.  The  permanence  of  British 
rule  and  the  safety  of  British  interests  lie  in  this 
diversity  of  race,  language,  government,  and  religion. 
In  division  is  strength,  in  discord  is  stability,  since 
their  race  hatreds,  jealousies,  animosities,  and  an- 
tipathies would  never  permit  a  native  leader  to  be 
acceptable  to  all  the  native  malcontents,  and  patriot- 
ism or  any  national  spirit  is  as  lacking  as  the  sense 
of  those  words,  and  of  even  the  word  for  gratitude. 
With  no  common  language  or  religion,  no  national 
feeling,  in  this  congress  of  nations,  one  may  para- 
phrase a  certain  interrogative  and  exclaim:  "The 
Indians !    Who  are  they  ? ' ' 

One  fifth  of  the  human  race  dwells  between  the 
Himalayas  and  the  ocean ;  the  records  of  their  civil- 
ization go  back  for  three  thousand  years,  and  his- 
tory has  been  written  upon  history  on  those  plains. 
Rice— two  hundred  and  ninety-five  kinds  of  rice, 
called  by  as  many  names  in  as  many  tongues— and 
pulse  are  the  staple  food  of  this  great  agricultural 
people,  drought  and  famine  the  lot  of  some  state  or 
province  each  year,  with  plague  and  cholera  seldom 
absent.  Two  great  famines  and  the  continual  rav- 
ages of  the  bubonic  pest  greatly  reduced  the  popu- 
lation during  the  last  decade  of  the  past  century, 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

the  decrease  in  the  native  states  being  many  times 
greater  than  in  the  British  provinces.  Increased 
areas  of  irrigation  and  cultivation  have  made  it  pos- 
sible for  the  increasing  millions  to  live— to  half  live, 
according  to  European  standards,  for  the  Indian 
coolie  or  agricultural  worker  is  lovi'est  in  the  scale  of 
living  and  wages  and  in  standard  of  comfort  of  any 
Asiatic.  Great  calamities  and  scourges  afford  the 
only  relief  from  over-population,— a  population  in 
which  the  women  are  in  deficit  to  the  number  of  six 
millions,  and  their  illiteracy  so  great  that  only  one 
woman  in  one  hundred  and  sixty  can  read. 

All  these  diverse  races  and  peoples  are  picturesque 
to  look  upon,  with  their  graceful  draperies  of  bril- 
liant colors  and  the  myriad  forms  of  turbans;  but 
they  are  not  an  attractive,  a  winning,  a  sympathetic, 
or  a  lovable  people.  They  are  as  antipathetic  and  de- 
void of  charm  as  the  Chinese,  as  callous,  as  deficient 
in  sympathy  and  the  sense  of  pity  as  those  next 
neighbors  of  theirs  in  Asia,  and  as  impossible  for  the 
Occidental  to  fathom  or  comprehend,— an  irresisti- 
ble, inexplicable,  unintelligible  repulsion  controlling 
one.  India  vexes  one  sadly  because  of  the  irrational, 
illogical  turns  of  the  Indian  mind  and  character,  the 
strange  impasses  in  the  Indian  brain,  the  contra- 
dictions of  traits;  and,  because  of  the  many  things 
he  cannot  account  for  or  reach  solution  of,  he  quits 
the  country  baffled  and  in  irritation — forever  the 
great  gulf  yawning  between  the  Occidental  and  the 
Asiatic.    "East  is  East,  and  West  is  West." 

Not  one  of  the  innumerable  tongues  that  he  hears 
spoken  by  the  common  people  in  the  bazaars  falls 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

musically  on  the  ear,  and  beyond  the  numerals  and 
a  few  utility  words  he  is  little  tempted  to  dabble  even 
with  Urdu,  the  camp  language,  the  lingua  franca 
of  the  upper  part  of  the  peninsula.  Jao!  (Begone !) 
is  the  first  word  he  learns  and  most  constantly  uses, 
the  last  syllable  uttered  on  leaving. 

From  the  babel  of  tongues,  with  no  conunon  al- 
phabet, has  come  a  confusion  of  spelling,  and  'the 
modern  or  Hunterian  method,  although  officially 
adopted  by  the  government  in  1880,  does  not  enjoy 
general  acceptance  and  use  in  India.  Sir  William 
Hunter  gave  years  to  investigating  and  recording 
local  usages,  to  transliterating  from  Sanskrit  and  the 
vernacular  the  geographic  names  of  the  peninsula, 
and  the  publication  of  his  great  Gazetteer  should 
have  ended  the  confusion  of  nomenclature.  Many 
of  his  departures  were  too  radical  for  the  older 
Anglo-Indians  to  accept— Saw^fZa  was  not  the  same 
as  bungalow  to  them,  kuli  did  not  represent  coolie, 
nor  pankha  the  cooling  punka ;  and  five,  eleven,  and 
seventy-two  ways  of  spelling  a  single  place-name 
continue  in  common  use — three  distinct  systems  of 
spelling  and  local  usage  still  prevailing,  often  in 
determined  opposition  to  the  Hunterian  method. 
The  first  American  authority,  which  is  followed  in 
this  volume,  does  not  wholly  accept  Sir  William 
Hunter's  decisions.  The  new  method  will  ultimately 
prevail,  but  with  another  generation. 


WINTER    INDIA 


WINTER    INDIA 

CHAPTER   I 

ON  India's  coral  strand 

^HE  monkeys  built  a  bridge  for  Rama  to 
cross  to  Ceylon,  and  sections  of  the 
causeway  by  which  Adam  traversed 
the  Palk  Strait  remain  as  evidence  of 
his  good  fortune  on  tour;  but  for  us 
there  was  the  worst  of  many  bad  "B.  I."  boats,  and 
a  night  of  never  to  be  forgotten  misery,  disgust,  and 
discomfort  on  the  Gulf  of  Manaar's  deceptive  waters. 
Of  all  dream  nights  in  the  tropics,  none  matched 
that  night  on  which  we  coursed  slowly  along  the 
south  shore  of  Ceylon,  from  Colombo  westward. 
Enormous  stars  pulsed  in  an  intense  indigo  sky,  the 
moon  rose  and,  streaming  across  a  summer  sea,  made 
a  heaven  above,  beneath,  and  far  around  us.  In  the 
midst  of  this  silvery  world  floated  the  odorous,  un- 
tidy coasting  steamer,  from  whose  decks  we  in- 
stinctively lifted  our  skirts  by  day,  and  across  which 
by  dark  sped  myriads  of  enormous  brown  roaches. 
The  dark  boxes  of  cabins  rustled  with  these  fleeing 
insects  when  a  light  was  brought,  and  we  retreated 
to  spend  the  night  in  deck  chairs. 


4  WINTER  INDIA 

Some  cross  current  in  that  pent-up  pocket  of. 
Manaar  makes  it  a  rival  of  the  English  Channel  for 
nausea;  but  at  daylight  the  ship  anchored  in  shal- 
low, gray-green  waters  seven  miles  off  the  low-ly- 
ing coast  of  the  Indian  peninsula— "India's  coral 
strand"— and  for  two  hours  it  rocked  there  more 
fully  to  complete  the  misery  of  two  hundred  coolie 
passengers,  heaped  together  on  the  forward  deck  like 
so  much  cargo.  It  was  slow  work  disembarking 
these  limp  folk,  who  fell  prone  in  every  stage  and 
attitude  of  misery  fore  and  aft  on  the  reeling  tender. 
A  greasy  bench  was  reserved  for  us  amidships,  fairly 
touching  the  boilers,  and,  after  inhaling  steam  and 
engine  grease  for  an  hour,  we  reached  the  snow- 
white  beach.  Inky-black  cargo  coolies  in  red  and 
white  draperies  filed  up  and  down  the  sandy  shore 
and  the  narrow  pier  of  Tuticorin,  and  there  was  local 
color  to  spare;  color,  too,  in  the  Custom-house, 
where  an  aldermanic  black  official,  with  an  exag- 
gerated sausage  of  a  turban  linked  around  his  caste- 
marked  brow,  received  us  with  unctuous  gravity, 
listened  to  our  declaration  that  we  had  neither 
spirits,  ammunition,  nor  firearms,  and  let  us  go 
with  our  unopened  luggage,  free  to  wander  at  will 
from  that  furthest  end  of  the  empire  to  the  utter- 
most mountain  wall,  without  official  interference  or 
question,  welcome  without  passport  or  permit,  free 
from  espionage  and  annoyance :  a  liberty  of  entrance, 
a  courteously  opened  door,  that  covers  the  American 
tourist  with  chagrin  as  he  contrasts  it  with  the  land- 
ing at  any  of  his  own  ports. 

Tuticorin 's  white  walls  and  houses,  white  sand 


'■•r" 


^Tf 


ON  INDIA'S  CORAL  STRAND  7 

streets,  and  the  paling  turquoise  sky  were  back- 
ground only  for  the  stage  processions  and  groups  of 
the  blackest  people  on  earth.  Heavens !  how  black 
they  were !  How  very  black !  When  Marco  Polo 
came  to  the  Malabar  coast,  he  said:  ''The  children 
Ihat  are  born  here  are  black  enough,  but  the  blacker 
they  are,  the  more  they  are  thought  of,  so  that  they 
become  as  black  as  devils." 

The  Tamil  people,  ebony  black,  inky  black,  sooty 
black,  tall  and  spare  to  emaciation,  lilted  past  us  on 
the  thin,  spindle  legs  of  storks.  A  mountain  of  red 
peppers  was  heaped  in  one  white  square,  and  scores 
of  the  blackest  Tamil  women,  in  pepper-red  dra- 
peries and  much  silver  jewelry,  slowly  walked  and 
worked  around  its  edges.  It  was  too  theatrical,  too 
barefacedly  a  color  tableau  set  to  catch  the  tourist 
eye,  and  I  was  convinced  that  it  lasted  only  for  that 
half-hour.  The  primitive  hotel  facing  the  railway 
station  was  but  a  loge  looking  upon  the  white  road- 
way of  a  stage,  where  a  specially  engaged  troupe  of 
tall  Tamils  and  noble  white  sacred  bullocks  paraded 
for  our  delight.  When  the  train  came  in  there  was 
bedlam  drama  at  the  station's  street  door;  then  all 
the  black  troupe  made  exit  and  melted  away  to  dis- 
tance and  shade;  there  was  an  interval,  an  entr'acte, 
and  we  went  over  and  behind  the  scenes  for  a  while. 

The  station-master  was  black,  the  telegraph  op- 
erator was  shades  blacker,  and  an  uncut  emerald, 
swinging  from  the  upper  rim  of  one  ear,  held  me  with 
a  great  fascination  while  he  skimmed  the  handful  of 
despatches.  First  and  last,  and  all  of  the  time,  in 
Indian  travel,  one  telegraphs,  and  then  sends  more 


8  WINTER  INDIA 

telegrams  ahead,  to  any  and  every  person  connected 
with  his  future  movements.  One  telegraphs  to  dak 
banglas,  to  station  rooms  and  hotels,  that  he  is  com- 
ing; to  station-masters  that  he  shall  want  sleeping 
accommodation  on  certain  trains;  to  local  guides  to 
secure  their  services;  to  high  priests,  magistrates, 
commissioners,  and  commandants  that  he  wishes  to 
see  certain  temples  or  sacred  treasuries  of  jewels ; 
and— the  government  telegraphs  being  moderate  in 
price— one  may  "wire"  away  as  recklessly  as  an 
American  railway  president  for  a  comparative  trifle. 
The  Tuticorin  station  walls  were  hung  with  notices 
and  framed  regulations,  and  there  was  posted  a 
formidable  black  list  of  fines  and  punishments  judi- 
cially awarded ;  the  offender  and  his  offense  paraded 
to  all  who  travel.  Pattu  This  and  Moolie  That  were 
fined  ''for  letting  their  cattle  stray  and  be  killed  on 
the  track";  another  had  been  caught  "riding  on  the 
trucks  without  a  ticket"— presumably  some  passen- 
gers, having  tickets,  do  ride  on  the  trucks.  They 
run  the  Indian  railways  for  the  good  of  the  stock- 
holders evidently,  and  receivers  of  unhappy  railways 
in  America  might  learn  lessons  of  economy  in  this 
land  of  want,  for  this  is  only  a  periodical  advertise- 
ment which  I  cut  from  a  Calcutta  paper: 

EAST  INDIAN  EAILWAY 

Tenders  for  the  right  of  picking  cinders  from   ashpits  and 

pumping  engines  during  the  twelve  months 

ending  31st  March  

Tenders  will  be  received  at  the  office  of  the  Controller  of 
Stores,  East  Indian  Railway,  Calcutta,  up  to  noon  of  Thurs- 


ON   INDIA'S  CORAL  STRAND  9 

flay,  the  14th  February ,  for  the  right  of  picking  cinders 

from  ashes  removed  from  ashpits  and  pumping  engines 
throughout  the  line  during  the  twelve  months  from  Ist  April 
to  31st  March  . 

Form  of  tender,  embodying  full  particulars,  can  be  had  on 
payment  of  Re.  1  to  the  Company's  Chief  Paymaster,  Cal- 
cutta, or  to  the  Storekeepers  at  Asansol,  Jamalpur,  Dinaj- 
pur,  Allahabad  and  Cawnpore,  to  whom  applications,  with 
remittance,  should  be  addressed.  Applicants  are  also  referred 
to  the  hand-bills  posted  at  railway  stations. 

All  other  payments,  including  a  deposit  of  Rs.  100  as 
earnest  money,  will  have  to  be  made  direct  to  the  Company 's 
Chief  Paymaster  in  Calcutta,  whose  receipt  alone  will  be 
recognized,  and  no  payment  in  respect  thereof  will  be  re- 
ceived in  the  Store  Department.  Hoondees  and  stamps  will 
not  be  accepted. 

The  Company  will  not  be  bound  to  accept  the  highest,  or 
any,  tender,  and  reserves  the  right  to  accept  any  tender  in 
part  only. 

By  order, 
J.  OATES, 
Controller  of  Stores. 

Calcutta. 

We  had  heard  much  of  the  luxury  of  Indian  rail- 
way travel,  of  the  roomy  compartment  and  dress- 
ing-room that  came  to  the  holder  of  a  first-class 
ticket  without  extra  charge.  We  found  that  the 
roomy  compartment  was  destined  for  four  people, 
and  contained  two  long  leather-covered  seats,  or 
couches,  along  the  side  of  the  ear,  with  two  hanging 
berths  that  could  be  dropped  at  night.  The  seats 
had  no  springs  and  no  backs,  unless  one  chose  to 
lean  against  the  single,  rattling  window-pane,  that 
lifted  by  a  strap  like  a  carriage  window.  The  cast- 
iron  fittings  in  the  dressing-room  were  ruder  and 


10  WINTER  INDIA 

more  primitive  than  those  of  any  American  emigrant 
car,  and  when  the  train  began  its  deliberate  progress, 
we  found  that  the  body  of  the  car  swung  so  low,  so 
nearly  rested  on  the  trucks,  that  we  were  jolted  and 
shaken  and  deafened,  as  if  in  a  coal-car,  and  covered 
with  the  dust  of  the  road-bed.  Nothing  different 
or  better  was  found,  save  once,  in  any  part  of  India, 
When  night  came,  a  feeble  oil-lamp  was  introduced 
through  the  roof,  that  made  it  possible  to  distinguish 
outlines  and  large  objects,  but  not  to  read. 

The  train  jogged  along  northward  through  a  flat, 
cultivated  country,  with  aloe  and  thorn  hedges  in- 
closing the  tracks.  After  the  rank  greenness  of  Cey- 
lon, these  dusty  fields  of  the  dry  season  seemed  poor 
and  sterile.  The  train  halted  near  mud  villages,  and 
the  station  platforms  were  covered  with  lean  and 
leisurely  black  folks  in  red  and  white  cotton  dra- 
peries, standing  at  ease,  their  foreheads  so  dotted 
and  striped  with  red,  white,  and  ocher  caste-marks, 
those  ciphers,  crests,  and  hall-marks  of  their  creed, 
that  they  looked  like  so  many  painted  red  Indians  of 
our  West  on  the  war-path.  There  was  the  usual  sta- 
tion bedlam  when  the  train  drew  up  in  darkness  at 
Madura,  and  we  followed  a  Tamil  leader  out  to 
blacker  darkness  across  the  tracks  to  the  dak  bangla. 
The  coolie  who  carried  the  bearer's  tin  trunk  on  his 
head  stumbled  over  tree  roots  and  finally  struck  a 
branch  overhead.  There  was  a  crash,  a  bang,  and 
a  wreck  of  Tamil  property,  and  then  a  flood  of  Tamil 
language,  as  David,  our  venerable  traveling  servant, 
poured  out  his  wrath  on  the  whining  offender,  who 
had  been  bruised  and  dented  a  little  himself. 


ON  INDIA'S  CORAL  STRAND  11 

The  dak  bangla  was  Spartan  in  its  simplicity,  the 
government  providing  only  beds,  chairs,  tables,  and 
bath-tubs,  the  stern  necessities  of  comfort  in  a  hot 
climate.  The  stillness  was  as  intense  as  the  dark- 
ness all  night,  and  after  the  chota  hazri  (little  break- 
fast) of  the  Indian  dawn  we  drove  three  miles 
across  awakening  Madura— a  city  of  low,  white 
houses,  with  green  cocoa-palms  and  broad  banana 
leaves  the  only  strong  color  notes.  The  white  houses 
Avere  dusted  and  clouded  with  the  red  earth  sur- 
rounding them,  all  dilapidated  and  in  need  of  repair, 
of  fall  cleaning  and  whitewash.  All  Madura  was 
awakening  at  that  dewy  hour, — tousled  folks  who 
came  to  the  doors,  yawned  like  alligators,  stretched 
their  leans  arms  in  air,  and  scratched  their  heads 
vigorously.  Men  lounged  face  down  on  charpoys, 
or  string-beds,  or  lolled  on  the  high  shelves  built 
in  the  alcoves  beside  the  house  doors,  and  chatted 
with  neighbors  who  had  also  spent  the  night  in  the 
open;  babies  sprawled  on  the  warm  red  earth,  and 
pious  women  traced  religious  symbols  in  white  chalk 
on  the  red  thresholds.  Every  door  had  its  sect-mark, 
its  religious  symbol  and  monogram,  as  much  as  the 
foreheads  of  the  people.  Every  blank  wall,  too,  was 
plastered  over  with  fiat  manure  cakes,  the  common 
and  universal  fuel  of  the  country,  which  one  sees 
in  process  of  manufacture  and  use  from  end  to  end 
of  the  empire ;  a  fuel  whose  rank  smoke  can  be  de- 
tected in  everything  one  eats  and  drinks  in  India, 
from  the  earliest  tea  and  toast  of  the  morning  to  the 
final  rice  pudding  and  coffee  at  night ;  a  fuel  whose 
use  deprives  the  fields  of  their  natural  enrichment 


12  .       WINTER  INDIA 

and  adds  to  the  general  poverty ;  a  fuel  whose  manu- 
facture—the gathering,  kneading,  and  shaping  into 
flat  cakes  to  be  slapped  against  a  wall  to  dry — is 
such  ignoble  work  that  rarely  any  but  women  are  em- 
ployed in  the  unending  task. 

After  these  early  morning  sights  in  the  streets, 
the  fantastic  Teppa  Kulam  was  a  bit  of  fairyland, 
a  great  tank  inclosed  in  a  striped  red  and  white 
stone  parapet,  with  a  dazzling  marble  platform  in 
its  center  upholding  the  most  fanciful  little  white 
coroneted  temple,  the  glorified  pavilion  of  a  con- 
fectioner's dreams,  four  mites  of  lesser  pavilions  re- 
flected from  each  corner  of  the  platform.  We  drove 
down  shady  lanes,  past  the  elephant  stables,  to  the 
garden  of  the  English  judge  to  see  the  great  banian 
tree,  whose  main  trunk,  over  seventy  feet  in  circum- 
ference, is  surrounded  by  a  hundred  lesser  trunks 
and  newly  rooted  filaments — a  leafy  hall  of  columns, 
measuring  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  across. 

We  went  to  the  spacious  Moorish  and  Hindu  sev- 
enteenth-century palace  of  the  great  ruler,  Tirumala 
Nayak,  and  after  a  small  boy  of  the  neighbor- 
hood had  taken  us  in  charge  and  scolded,  stamped 
liis  foot,  and  pushed  an  old  gray-haired  sweeper 
about,  that  abject  being  produced  the  keys  and  ad- 
mitted us  to  cool,  shadowy  halls  and  council-cham- 
bers with  richly  carved  and  paneled  ceilings,  to  the 
king's  bedchamber,  where  a  carved  and  gilded  bed 
once  swung  by  chains  from  latticed  ceilings,  and 
down  whose  chains  the  clever  thief  slid  to  steal  the 
crown  jewels;  and  from  the  terraced  roof  where  the 
prime  minister   used  to   dwell  we   saw   the  whole, 


TIIK,  fllvKAT  Cdl'UK.V.  MAOflJA    TKMI'I.K. 


ON  INDIA'S  CORAL  STRAND  15 

flat-roofed  city  with  the  great  gopuras,  or  temple 
gateways,  standing  like  so  many  Gibraltars  in  its 
midst. 

These  gopuras  loom  and  dwindle  away  toward  the 
sky  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  all  things  seem  toys, 
and  the  people  pygmies.  One  such  monument  would 
be  architectural  fame  for  any  city,  but  Madura's 
rich  shrine  is  protected  by  nine  such  soaring,  py- 
ramidal sky-scrapers,  the  four  in  the  outer  wall  nine 
stories  in  height.  These  most  ornamental  of  de- 
fensive constructions  begin  with  door-posts  of  single 
stones,  sixty  feet  in  height,  and  rise,  course  upon 
course,  carved  with  rows  of  gods  and  goddesses,  pea- 
cocks, Hulls,  elephants,  horses,  lions,  and  a  bewilder- 
ing entanglement  of  symbolical  ornament  all  colored 
and  gilded,  diminishing  with  distance  until  the 
stone  trisul  at  the  top,  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
in  air,  looks  like  the  finest  jeweler's  work.  This 
great  shrine  of  Shiva  and  his  fish-eyed  consort  is  a 
labyrinth  where  one  easily  wanders  a  whole  morn- 
ing. The  anteroom  or  vestibule  of  the  temple  is  a 
long  hall  or  choltry,  an  open  pavilion  divided  by 
four  rows  of  most  elaborately  carved  columns,  where 
the  king  used  to  receive  the  annual  visits  of  Shiva — 
a  miserable  little  black  image.  Neither  kings  nor 
idols  occupied  it  then,  but  a  legion  of  shopkeepers 
were  gathered  there,  who  vaunted  their  goods  and 
pushed  their  wares  upon  us  with  fury  and  zeal  — 
cloth,  cotton,  lace,  brass,  glass,  perfumes,  incense, 
and  fruits.  One  spectacled  merchant  was  casting  up 
his  accounts  in  a  ledger  made  of  strips  of  talipot 
palm  leaves,  an  orthodox  fashion  as  old  as  writing. 


16  WINTER  INDIA 

Others  pressed  upon  us  pieces  of  filmy,  gold-bor- 
dered Madras  muslins,  eight  yards  of  which  are  re- 
quired for  a  turban  or  a  woman's  sari.  There  were 
none  of  the  ancient  India  muslins,  those  "floating 
mists,"  or  ''webs  of  the  air,"  of  which  one  has 
heard  but  never  sees  in  this  day  of  Manchester  piece 
goods,  steam-mills,  and  spindles. 

Our  Tamil  servant,  being  a  Christian,  would  not 
enter  the  heathen  temple,  so  consigned  us  to  a  high- 
caste  Brahman  draped  superbly  in  a  white  sheet, 
and  striped  between  his  eyebrows  with  the  frown- 
ing mark  of  Shiva.  Inside  the  temple  compound, 
every  forehead  was  freshly  painted,  breasts  and 
arms  striped  and  smeared  with  other  hall-marks  of 
piety.  The  black  images  were  streaming  with  oil 
and  butter,  garlanded  with  chains  of  marigolds,  and 
surrounded  by  abject  worshipers.  In  that  temple 
one  may  fully  realize  what  heathenism  and  idolatry 
really  are.  One  meets  there  the  India  of  the  Sun- 
day-school books,  and  is  appalled  with  the  seeming 
hopelessness  of  the  missionary's  task,  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  ever  making  any  impression  upon  such  a 
people,  of  coping  with  such  superstition.  Yet  the 
American  Mission  in  Madura  is  one  of  the  largest 
and  most  successful  in  India,  and  in  this  southern 
presidency  one  fifth  of  the  people  are  Christians. 
Whole  villages  even  are  Christian,  Syrian,  Nestorian, 
and  early  Jesuit  missionaries  having  labored  there 
since  the  third  and  fourth  centuries. 

We  could  look  down  dark  temple  corridors  to 
darker  shrines,  where  faint  lights  glimmered  and 
the  highest-caste  Brahmans  were  tending  the  images 


ON  INDIA'S  CORAL  STRAND  17 

of  Shiva  and  Minakshi.  Every  May  these  idols  are 
paraded  in  state  to  another  part  of  the  temple,  and 
the  gold  and  silver  chariots  and  palanquins,  the 
jeweled  elephant  trappings,  and  all  the  treasury  of 
gems  belonging  to  the  shrine  are  brought  to  light. 
The  Madura  temple  jewels  are  among  the  finest  in 
southern  India,  and  one  sees  them  by  special  permit, 
and  afterward  pays  a  fee  for  the  cleansing  of  the 
jewels.  Despite  the  rupees  and  rupees  that  pour  in 
during  the  cold-weather  season  of  tourists'  defile- 
ment, no  one  has  ever  seen  the  famous  sapphires 
and  big  pearls  when  they  were  not  greasy  and 
gummed  over  from  much  tourist  and  Brahman 
handling.  Other  famous  treasures  are  a  ruby-covered 
scepter,  three  feet  long ;  several  pairs  of  golden  shoes 
and  gauntlets  coated  with  rubies ;  and  a  head-dress 
fringed  with  tallow-drop  emeralds. 

The  famous  Hall  of  a  Thousand  Columns  does  not 
contain  nearly  that  many  columns  or  carved  pillars, 
and,  despite  the  miracle  of  stone- worker 's  art  lav- 
ished on  them,  and  Fergusson's  praises,  it  was  dis- 
appointing. The  tank  in  the  heart  of  the  labyrinth, 
a  water  court  or  quadrangle,  was  most  picturesque 
with  the  crowds  descending  the  steps  to  purify  them- 
selves in  the  water,  where  broken  reflections  of  the 
great  gopuras  wavered  across  the  thick  and  oily 
liquid.  Sacred  elephants  came  shuffling  across  sunny 
courts,  their  bells,  swinging  by  long  ropes  over  their 
embroidered  trappings,  clanging  an  alarum.  Hav- 
ing returned  from  the  river  with  the  gold  lotas  filled 
with  water  for  the  daily  bath  of  the  goddess,  they 
stood  at  ease  in  a  shady  hall,  swinging  their  painted 


18  WINTER  INDIA 

trunks  and  shifting  their  weight  from  one  foot  to  the 
other.  At  the  word  of  command,  the  hugest  of  them 
tossed  his  trunk  in  salute,  made  a  court  courtesy, 
and,  nosing  the  ground,  picked  up  the  tiniest  silver 
three-anna  piece.  The  elephants  flicked  their  flanks 
with  fly-brushes  of  green  twigs  as  they  stood  guard 
benignly  over  the  hall  where  jewelers  were  hammer- 
ing, welding,  and  carving  gold  and  silver  ornaments. 
Veiled  women  sat  around  a  merchant  of  cheaper 
gauds,  who,  with  a  small  prentice  boy,  cracked  or 
filed  off  the  old  bracelets  and  soldered  on  the  new. 

It  was  then  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  heat 
was  terrific,  the  sun  blinding,  and  we  had  spent  five 
busy  hours  abroad.  The  dak  bangla  was  an  asylum 
of  coolness  and  shade,  and  after  a  bountiful  tiffin  the 
keeper  presented  his  account-book,  we  entered  the 
items,  added  up  the  bill,  and  settled  our  score  with 
the  British  government  in  India.  The  keeper  bowed 
profoundly,  and  wished  the  "ladyships"  a  good 
health,  when  a  fee  had  gon,e  his  way;  and  then,  in 
strict  order  of  social  precedence,  the  cook  and  the 
coolie,  the  sweeper,  the  water-carrier,  and  what  not, 
presented  themselves,  bowing,  at  different  doors. 
They  rubbed  their  palms  upward  across  their  faces, 
extended  them  to  us,  wobbling  their  fingers  as  if 
gathering  grains  of  rice,  and  whined:  "Prissint! 
Prissint!  Memsahib!"  We  gave  to  each  one,  and, 
without  stopping  to  bow  or  to  thank  us,  each  one 
looked  greedily  into  the  other's  palm  and  went  away 
loudly  wrangling— a  first  encounter  with  the  most 
cringing,  graceless,  shameless  tribe  of  alms-seekers 
in  all  the  world. 


OKTAIl.   OF   GiirrKA,  MAOriA     ri:MlM  1. 


CHAPTER    II 


TRICHINOPOIJ   AND   TANJORE 


E  rumbled  and  jolted  along  all  that 
hot  afternoon  over  a  monotonous,  dry 
brown  plain  of  parched  fields  and 
thorn  hedges.  There  was  uproar  in 
the  forward  part  of  the  train  as  it 
left  Dindigal  station,  a  hundred  voices  clamored 
and  shrieked,  and  a  hundred  heads  hung  from 
the  windows  of  the  third-class  cars.  The  train 
halted,  men  leaped  from  it  and  ran  back,  while  all 
on  the  station  platform  ran  up  the  track  toward  a 
small  object  beside  the  rails.  The  station-master 
came  on  toward  the  train,  holding  fast  to  a  lean 
little  black  imp,  who  was  struggling  to  release  him- 
self and  fairly  bursting  with  wrath.  An  excited 
woman,  wailing  and  declaiming  with  uncovered  face, 
leaned  from  a  forward  car  window,  talking  to  an  ex- 
cited group  on  the  ground.  At  last,  an  oily  babu 
came  to  tell  us  that  the  small  boy  had  "had  a  dis- 
pute with  his  mother,"  and,  not  wishing  to  leave 
Dindigal,  had  jumped  out  of  the  window.  "His 
fearful  mother  had  thought  him  killed,"  said  the 
babu,  but  at  sight  of  the  lost  heir  her  fear  gave  way 
to  fury.  She  raved  and  ranted  like  an  Indian  Bern- 
hardt as  she  leaned  from  the  window,  unveiled,  talk- 

21 


22  WINTER   INDIA 

ing  to  the  station  officers ;  and  the  small  boy  talked 
back  to  everybody,  until  he  was  suddenly  lifted  by 
the  back,  like  a  kitten,  and  handed  through  the  win- 
dow to  "his  fearful  mother's"  arms.  "Because  of 
his  youth  they  will  not  arrest  him, ' '  said  the  babu ; 
and,  from  the  shrieks  that  came  from  that  compart- 
ment, there  was  no  need  for  the  law  to  add  aught 
to  the  chastisement  of  the  barefaced,  nose-ringed 
mother. 

We  were  in  the  heart  of  the  tobacco  country,  and 
Trichinopoli  in  these  modern  days  is  as  much  a 
synonym  for  cheroots  as  Dindigal.  Samuel  Daniel, 
the  local  guide,  who  claimed  us  in  the  darkness  of 
Trichinopoli  station,  had  the  advertisement  of  his 
own  cigar  factory  on  the  back  of  his  card,  and  every- 
where we  saw  and  smelled  the  local  cheroot.  We  slept 
in  the  travelers'  rooms  in  the  Trichinopoli  station, 
after  dining  at  a  table  trailed  over  with  bougain- 
villea  vines  and  set  with  glasses  of  great  double  hibis- 
cus. Trains  rumbled  by  all  night,  the  mosquitos 
sang  a  deafening  chorus,  and  at  sunrise  we  sped 
across  another  city  of  dirty  white  houses,  whose  in- 
habitants were  just  waking  and  scratching,  and 
whose  Brahman  families  were  marking  the  door-sills 
and  themselves  for  the  day,  the  houses'  toilet  as 
necessary  as  their  own. 

The  rock  of  Trichinopoli,  exactly  as  it  looked  in 
old  geography  pictures,  loomed  ahead;  and  after  a 
few  turns  in  the  narrow  streets  we  came  to  the 
carved  entrance  of  the  staircase,  tunneled  up  through 
the  solid  rock  to  temples  on  the  side  and  summit. 
Two  elephants  went  past  on  their  way  to  the  river 


TRICHINOPOLI  AND  TANJORE  23 

to  fill  the  sacred  water-vessels,  and  we  started  to 
climb  the  two  hundred  and  ninety  steps  worn  slip- 
pery with  the  tread  of  generations  of  barefooted 
worshipers  and  painted  with  the  perpendicular  red 
and  white  stripes  of  Shiva,  Our  elderly,  pompous 
guide  was  voluble,  measured,  and  minute,  and  per- 
mitted no  trifling  nor  omissions.  Samuel  Daniel 
talked  like  Samuel  Johnson,  using  the  grandiloquent, 
polysyllabic  literary  language  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. We  had  engaged  him  to  show  us  the  sights, 
and  he  did  it  thoroughly.  "Here  is  the  place  where 
many  hundreds  of  people  were  crushed  to  death  in 
the  dark  of  the  afternoon  of  a  festival  in  1849,"  he 
said.  Since  then,  the  British  government  has  cut 
windows  in  the  rock,  placed  lamps,  and  forbidden 
climbing  after  four  o'clock.  At  one  landing  we 
found  a  group  of  little  boys  sitting  before  a  greasy, 
black  image  of  Ganesha,  the  elephant-headed  god, 
receiving  instruction  from  a  Brahman  teacher;  at 
another  landing  a  high  priest  stood  statuesque  in 
yellow  robes,  the  sacred  white  Brahman  thread  and 
bead  on  his  neck,  his  forehead  smeared  with  ashes; 
and  at  last  we  came  out  to  the  air  at  a  small  shrine 
on  an  outer  shelf  of  the  rock,  where  Ave  had  a  far- 
reaching  view  of  the  level  plain.  After  one  more 
tunnel  staircase  we  gained  the  open  summit,  climbed 
a  last  pinnacle,  and  found  ourselves  two  hundred 
and  thirty-six  feet  above  the  city,  that  lay  like  a 
relief -map  at  our  feet,  the  fortress-like  gopuras  of 
the  Srirangam  temples  rising  from  green  groves 
southward,  A  little  temple  to  Ganesha  crowns  the 
rock,  the  goal  of  the  breathless  pilgrimage.     Half- 


24  WINTER  INDIA 

way  down  the  staircase,  we  were  deafened  by  the 
flutes  and  flageolets  of  the  priests  and  flag-bearers 
toiling  up  with  water-jars  just  brought  from  the 
river.  The  sacred  elephants  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
saluted  us  with  lifted  fore  feet  and  waving  trunks, 
rubbing  their  foreheads  as  they  begged,  plainly  de- 
manding a  "prissint,"  after  the  custom  of  the 
country. 

It  was  a  short  drive  of  three  miles  down  to  the 
temple  of  Vishnu  at  Srirangam,  on  an  island  in  the 
dry  bed  of  the  Kaveri.  This,  the  largest  temple  in 
southern  India,  is  on  a  magnificent  scale,  its  fifteen 
gopuras  so  many  marvels  of  architecture ;  the  great- 
est of  them  falling  short  of  its  intended  three  hun- 
dred feet  by  the  interruption  of  building  during 
the  French  and  English  wars  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  French  intrenched  themselves  at  Sri- 
rangam and  mounted  cannon  on  the  gopuras.  The 
outer,  inclosing  wall  of  the  temple  measures  three 
thousand  feet  each  way,  and  within  that  lies  a  first 
quadrangle  of  bazaars.  A  second  gopura  admits  to 
a  quadrangle  where  the  three  thousand  high-caste 
Brahmans  of  the  temple  dwell.  We  drove  on  through 
a  third  and  a  fourth  gopura,  in  one  passage  disputing 
right  of  way  with  a  temple  elephant,  who  backed  out 
before  our  brougham,  and,  Avith  the  courtesy  of  a 
well-bred  creature,  swept  his  trunk  and  lifted  a  fore 
foot  in  apology.  The  last  gateway  had  great  teak 
doors,  and  the  doctor  of  the  temple  and  director  of 
the  Srirangam  government  hospital  met  us  there; 
also  the  council  of  priests  and  five  huge  elephants, 
their  foreheads  striped  with  the  same  yellow  and 


TRICHINOPOLI  AND  TANJORE  25 

white  tridents  of  Vishnu  as  their  piously  frescoed 
keepers.  We  saw  the  famous  Hall  of  the  Horse  Col- 
umns, where  single  blocks  of  granite  are  as  intricately 
carved  as  wood  or  ivory,  and  we  saw  the  other  curi- 
osities of  the  stone-cutter's  art,  serried  columns  dis- 
playing the  many  incarnations  of  Vishnu.  We  saw, 
too,  the  Hall  of  a  Thousand  Columns — nine  hundred 
odd  shabby,  whitewashed  pillars  only— and  from  the 
roof  we  were  given  a  glimpse  of  the  golden  cupola 
covering  the  shrine  of  the  sacred  image— the  identi- 
cal image  brought  by  Rama  in  the  age  of  fable,  and 
which  grew  fast  to  the  ground  when  left  for  a 
moment.  They  were  then  preparing  for  the  great 
mela  or  festival  of  early  December,  when  forty 
thousand  pilgrims  assemble,  crowds  spending  day 
and  night  in  the  temple  for  three  weeks. 

We  were  shown  to  a  last  pavilion,  given  arm- 
chairs before  a  table,  the  five  elephants  were  sta- 
tioned in  line  across  the  entrance,  and  fierce-fore- 
headed  Brahmans  multiplied.  Strings  of  keys 
clanged  on  the  table,  five  clumsy  wooden  chests  were 
lugged  in,  five  padlocks  yielded  to  blows  and 
wrenches,  and  the  table  was  heaped  with  riches ;  the 
feast  of  jewels  was  spread,  and  a  flood  of  color  and 
light  illuminated  the  shadowy, pavilion.  Gold  armor 
and  ornaments  and  utensils  incrusted  with  jewels 
were  heaped  on  the  table  and  handed  us  to  examine, 
until  one  wondered  if  any  more  rubies,  emeralds,  sap- 
phires, diamonds,  or  pearls  were  left  in  southern  In- 
dia. Gold  helmets,  crowns,  breastplates,  gauntlets, 
brassards,  belts,  necklaces,  bracelets,  anklets,  were 
sown  with  rubies  of  thumb-nail  size,  with  sapphires 


26  WINTER  INDIA 

and  diamonds  seeded  between,  and  fringed  with 
pearls  and  uncut  emeralds.  Plain  gold  salvers,  water- 
bottles,  gourds,  and  bowls  had  neither  value  nor  in- 
terest in  our  eyes  after  the  play  of  gems.  Even  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  gold  salver,  inscribed  "Dec.  11th, 
1875, "  to  commemorate  his  visit  to  the  temple,  seemed 
dull  and  commonplace.  Far  better  was  the  gold 
breastplate  fringed  with  tallow-drop  emeralds,  which 
he  also  gave  as  a  souvenir  of  his  visit  to  this  great 
shrine  of  Vishnu.  There  were  several  Vishnu  tri- 
dents in  diamonds,  and  jeweled  feathers  trembling 
with  diamond  fringes;  turban  ornaments  in  which 
jeweled  birds  held  great  drops  of  rubies  and  emeralds 
in  their  beaks ;  a  jeweled  umbrella-stick  with  an  inch- 
long  sapphire  for  its  ferrule,  a  crust  of  rubies  for  its 
handle,  and  a  fringe  of  tinkling  bo-leaves  edged  with 
pearls.  Four  great  wings  of  head-ornaments  cov- 
ered with  jewels  had  been  given  by  a  pious  beggar, 
who  had  gathered  more  than  fifty  thousand  rupees 
in  alms  to  spend  for  such  gifts  to  the  gods  and  gauds 
for  the  temple,  his  stones  better  cut  and  set  and  of 
better  quality  than  any  others  in  the  treasury. 
Strings  and  strings  of  pearls— pearls  strung  alone 
or  alternating  with  balls  of  emerald,  ruby,  or  carved 
gold— slipped  through  our  hands  to  weariness.  Our 
eyes  were  sated  with  splendor  and  color  when,  as  a 
climax,  they  produced  a  fine  bit  of  gold  carving, 
representing  a  religious  procession,  the  idol  in  the 
state  chair  cut  from  a  large  ruby,  the  tiny  face,  the 
drapery,  and  the  many  ornaments  most  cleverly 
done. 

It  was  a  characteristic  and  a  picturesque  scene 


TRICHINOPOLI  AND  TANJORE  29 

there  under  the  mandapan,  the  riches  of  India  laid 
out  on  a  dirty  cotton  table-cover !— the  wise  elephants 
a  contrast  in  good  manners  to  the  horde  of  noisy 
and  excited  Brahmans.  Although  it  had  required 
the  intervention  of  three  officials  to  permit  us  to  see 
the  jewels,  and  each  chest  is  locked  with  five  keys 
and  sealed  with  five  seals  of  that  many  Brahman 
keepers,  thefts  are  frequent,  and  fifty  thousand 
rupees'  worth  of  jewels  vanished  at  one  time.  The 
police  kept  their  eyes  on  each  of  the  priestly  band, 
the  elephants  blinked  and  watched  too ;  and  when  we 
had  offered  our  rupees  to  clean  the  jewels,  the 
Brahmans  set  up  an  approving  shout,  dropped  gar- 
lands of  marigolds  around  our  necks,  and  presented 
us  with  fragrant  lemons.  We  rose  to  go,  and  the 
most  gaudily  painted  and  blackest  old  Brahman  of 
them  all  pushed  forward,  shouting:  "I  want  my  pho- 
tograph now.  You  have  it  in  that  box.  You  took 
it  an  hour  ago.  I  am  Venketerama  lyenzar,  revenue 
inspector  of  Srirangam.  Send  it  to  me  by  the 
post."  And  with  the  elephants  trumpeting  and 
nosing  for  two-anna  pieces  in  the  dust,  we  drove 
away  to  the  silk  and  silver  and  muslin  shops  of 
**Trichi,"  as  one  soon  learns  to  call  it.  There  the 
lahsildar  spied  our  brougham,  and,  descending  from 
his  bullock-cart,  paid  us  a  visit  at  the  silk  merchant's 
shop  front— the  courteous,  gracious  old  tahsildar, 
a  fine  product  of  two  civilizations. 

Samuel  Daniel,  our  guide  with  the  tobacco  fac- 
tory attached,  was  radiant  with  the  success  of  the 
whole  morning.  Elated  from  his  converse  with 
Brahmans,   doctors,   and  tahsildar,   he   dropped  so 


30  WINTER  INDIA 

much  architectural  and  historical  information  about 
Chidambram,  Conjeveram,  and  Mahabalipur,  that 
we  said :    ' '  Why,  you  must  have  read  Fergusson  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  your  ladyship.  I  have  the  book.  Ten 
rupees. ' ' 

"Then  you  had  better  go  with  us  as  guide." 

"Yes,  your  ladyship,"  and  he  went  and  made  our 
way  so  plain,  so  smooth  and  interesting,  that  we  com- 
pared all  other  guides  in  India  with  him  to  their 
detriment. 

A  Catholic  priest  in  cool  white  robes  tiffined  also 
at  the  station,  and  told  of  some  of  the  great  successes 
in  mission  work  in  the  south;  how  whole  villages 
have  become  Christian  when  the  priest  permits  them 
to  retain  their  caste.  "It  is  among  our  converts,  or 
in  places  where  we  have  worked  before  them,  that 
your  Protestant  missionaries  have  most  success,"  he 
said. 

From  the  rock  of  Trichinopoli  we  had  seen  the 
great  pagoda  tower  of  Tanjore  on  the  horizon,  and 
as  we  rumbled  the  thirty  miles  across  the  Kaveri 
plain  in  the  early,  showery  afternoon  it  rose  in 
height  as  we  advanced,  and  the  train  stopped  fairly 
in  its  shadow.  Leaving  David  to  watch  the  luggage 
at  the  station,  Samuel  Daniel  hurried  us  to  the 
temple  gate  and  under  the  two  gopuras  to  the  striped 
inner  court,  where  the  thirteen-story  vimana,  or 
tower,  of  Shiva  tapers  away  until  its  great  trisul 
seems  to  touch  the  very  sky. 

"Ah  !  you  see  here  the  cleverosity  of  the  OKI  World 
builders  and  the  numerosity  of  their  carvings,"  said 
Daniel,  proudly. 


TRICHINOPOLI  AND  TANJORE  31 

After  the  French  occupied  tlie  temple  as  a  fortress 
in  1777,  it  was  never  purified  or  sanctified  again,  and 
the  deserted  court  was  a  contrast  to  the  other  temples 
we  had  seen.  Two  barefooted  priests  slipped  silently 
across  an  angle  of  the  cloisters,  the  colossal  stone 
bull  crouched  under  its  grease  and  garlands,  and 
only  the  fluttering  parrakeets  gave  any  sign  or  sound 
of  life  to  the  vast  inclosure.  We  gazed  in  wonder- 
ment at  the  court,  the  tower,  and  the  exquisite  little 
temple  of  Subrahmanya,  the  martial  son  of  Shiva,  on 
whose  steps  we  met  two  glib,  sightseeing  babus,  who 
began  at  once  to  upbraid  us  for  the  proselytizing 
work  of  the  missionaries.  The  one  with  the  largest 
Vishnu  mark  on  his  brow  had  graduated  as  a  civil  en- 
gineer at  Calcutta  University,  but  the  exact  sciences 
had  not  taught  him  to  disbelieve  in  greasy  images, 
or  opened  his  eyes  to  any  absurdities  in  his  creed, 
and  his  torrent  of  words  came  like  the  flow  of  a 
phonograph.  "Why  do  you  come  here  to  destroy 
our  religion?"  he  pattered.  I  denied  the  charge. 
"Why  do  you  wish  us  to  give  up  our  gods  for  your 
gods?"  I  denied  the  plural,  and  after  the  twittering 
parrakeet  had  followed  us  awhile,  we  left  him  shout- 
ing the  rest  of  his  set  speech  to  the  empty  court. 

It  was  a  rest  to  find  one  heathen  temple  deserted, 
to  be  spared  the  oily  Brahman  guide,  and  to  trace 
in  peace  the  details  of  this  most  beautiful  of  Dra- 
vidian  temples,  the  purest  example  of  that  style. 
The  great  vimana,  or  pagoda,  thirteen  stories  in 
height,  mounts  like  the  gopuras  of  Madura,  course 
upon  course,  carved  over  with  figures  and  ornaments, 
two  hundred  feet  to  the  ball  at  the  peak— a  granite 


32  WINTER  INDIA 

mass  weighing  more  than  twelve  tons,  and  which 
could  have  been  placed  there  only  by  rolling  it  up 
an  inclined  plane  more  than  a  mile  in  length.  In 
repairing  the  tower  a  few  centuries  ago,  the  sculptors 
introduced  a  face  in  one  floral  medallion  that  was  not 
of  any  Hindu  type.  The  local  prophets  said  that  it 
wore  the  features  of  the  people  who  would  conquer 
India,  and  it  is  easily  recognized  now  as  an  admir- 
able portrait  of  John  Bright.  We  found  Flaxman's 
beautiful  tablet  to  the  memory  of  Schwartz  in  the 
church  where  the  great  missionary  preached.  The 
church  faces  a  tank  where  picturesque  files  of  women 
with  brass  jars  on  their  heads  went  up  and  down  four 
separate  flights  of  terrace  steps,  each  for  a  special 
caste. 

The  elephants,  which  are  kept  "for  the  honor  and 
glory  of  the  palace,"  now  that  rajas  ride  in  landaus 
and  automobiles,  were  swaying  uneasily  at  their 
posts  in  the  palace  courtyard,  trumpeting  and  toss- 
ing trunk-loads  of  leaves  and  straw  on  their  backs. 
We  were  shown  the  black  and  white  marble  durbar 
hall  of  the  palace,  and  the  library  full  of  illuminated 
Persian  books,  and  of  precious  Tamil  manuscripts 
written  on  strips  of  palm  leaves.  When  we  had  wan- 
dered through  all  the  inner  courts,  such  a  train  of 
guides,  lackeys,  ushers,  keepers,  sweepers,  porters, 
and  gardeners  fawned  with  extended  palms  that  even 
Samuel  Daniel  Avas  dismayed,  laid  the  coins  on  the 
flagstones,  and  walked  away  from  the  ensuing  scene 
of  combat.  We  were  just  in  time  to  see  the  mahouts 
scramble  to  the  elephants'  necks  as  a  fanfare  of 
trumpets  and  two  scarlet  lancers  heralded  a  landau 


TRICHINOPOLI  AND  TANJORE  33 

holding  two  pale  yellow,  heavily  jeweled  grandchil- 
dren of  the  raja  returning  from  a  drive.  A  bearer 
with  a  red  umbrella  ran  after  them,  the  elephants 
saluted  with  trunk  and  foot,  and  the  sad-faced 
princelings  disappeared  in  the  palace. 

The  railway  station  was  as  deserted  as  the  temple 
court  in  the  late  afternoon,  and  M'e  had  the  table 
brought  out  to  the  platform  and  enjoyed  tea  in  the 
open  air.  A  white  tramp,  a  pure  specimen  of  the 
genus  hobo,  the  only  one  of  his  kind  encountered  in 
India,  appeared  silently  with :  "You  are  a  European 
like  myself,  lady.  Please  give  me  a  few  rupees  to  get 
to  Tuticorin."  David  and  Daniel  came  running  in 
alarm,  and  hastily  swept  table,  books,  chairs,  and 
ourselves  inside  the  refreshment-room  and  banged 
the  doors,  and  the  beery  beggar  slunk  away  to  the 
native  bazaar.  The  butler  was  decorating  his  white 
dinner-cloth  with  interlacing  arabesques  of  black 
seeds  dropped  from  a  funnel,  after  which  he  arranged 
finger-bowls  filled  Avith  black-eyed  marigolds  among 
his  traceries  and  stood  off  to  admire  the  effect. 
Again  and  again  we  marveled  that  the  Hindu,  with 
his  gross  stupidities  and  incompetencies,  had  yet 
been  able  so  thoroughly  to  master  the  intricacies 
of  an  English  dinner,  the  decoration  of  the  table, 
the  procession  of  the  courses,  the  ceremony  and  de- 
corum of  it  all,  with  little  of  the  incongruity  and 
inequalities,  the  mixed  splendor  and  shabbiness,  that 
mark  everything  of  the  Hindu's  own. 


CHAPTER   III 

WITH  chidambram's  brahmans 

was  our  fine  old  Tamil  Turveydrop, 
Samuel  Daniel,  who  induced  us  to  visit 
Chidambram  after  we  had  abandoned 
it  i-n  favor  of  Conjeveram,  where  the 
temple  was  said  to  be  richer,  the  jewels 
more  splendid.  This  artful  one  pictured  "the  clever- 
osity  and  numerosity  of  the  sculptures,"  also  "the 
numberlesses  of  the  goddesses  and  the  beauteousness 
of  the  temple's  dancers,  which  makes  it  so  popular 
for  visitors,"  and  our  interest  revived. 

As  necessary  precedent  to  every  move  one  makes 
in  India,  enough  telegrams  were  sent  to  negotiate  a 
treaty.  We  wired  the  Chidambram  station-master  to 
have  conveyances  ready  the  next  midnight  to  take 
us  the  three  miles  to  the  dak  bangla.  We  wired  the 
bangla-keeper  that  we  were  coming,  two  beds  strong. 
We  informed  the  local  magistrate  and  the  high 
priest  that  we  wished  to  make  an  offering  to  the 
temple  and  to  celebrate  in  honor  of  the  goddess  with 
a  great  dance  in  the  Hall  of  a  Thousand  Columns 
and  to  see  the  famous  temple  jewels.  Last,  we  be- 
sought the  section  superintendent  of  the  railway  to 
reserve  a  compartment  in  the  next  midnight  train 
that  would  bear  us  away  from  Chidambram. 

34 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMANS  35 

With  the  remoteness  and  seeming  isolation  among 
the  black  faces  one  has  no  fear  or  concern  in  these 
Hindu  communities,  trusting  implicitly  to  that  safety 
and  order  guaranteed  one  wherever  the  British  flag 
floats  and  Kaiscr-i-Hind's  initial  letters  grace  offi- 
cial property.  Else,  when  we  stepped  out  on  the 
lonely  platform  at  Chidambram  that  rainy  midnight, 
we  would  have  thought  twice  before  picking  our  way 
through  sleeping  pilgrims  in  the  open  waiting-room, 
and  stowing  ourselves  away  with  every  joint  bent 
in  a  tiny  box  of  a  native  cart,  or  "lie-down-bandy," 
for  the  ride  into  unknown  blackness  beyond.  Daniel 
compressed  himself  with  David  and  the  larger  lug- 
gage bundles  into  another  small  box  on  wheels,  and 
the  ponies  spattered  down  a  muddy  road  in  the  black 
shadows  of  overarching  trees.  Our  driver  had  no 
turban,  his  hair  was  long  and  snaky,  and  the  jerky 
motion  of  the  bandy,  and  the  driver's  frequent 
flights  out  over  the  shafts  to  lead  the  pony  by  the 
bridle  over  bridges  and  around  corners,  sent  those 
locks  rippling  down  his  l^ack— and  my  back,  too,  as 
I  sat  hatless,  crouched  flat  on  the  bandy  floor  behind 
him.  After  what  seemed  a  long  race  through  the 
reek  and  blackness,  past  sodden  fields  and  through 
dreary  mud  hamlets,  we  came  in  under  the  shadows 
of  the  great  trees  surrounding  the  dak  bangla. 

With  the  abrupt  reining  up  we  slid  out,  or  fell 
out,  of  the  bandbox  of  a  bandy,  and  our  cramped 
members  slowly  jointed  out  straight  again.  Knocks, 
thumps,  and  calls  brought  no  response  from  t^¥0 
front  doors,  and  there  was  an  uncanny  quarter-hour 
of  waiting  before  the  swaying  lantern  of  Daniel  and 


36  WINTER  INDIA 

David's  bandy  turned  in  at  the  gates— and  yet  an- 
other eerie  quarter  of  an  hour  while  the  bandy 
drivers  muttered  in  the  near  darkness,  and  our  two 
protectors  pounded  and  shouted  at  a  far-away  door. 
The  moon  struggled  out  in  rare  glimpses  and  gave 
us  suggestion  now  and  then  of  a  great  lawn  and  trees, 
a  long,  low,  white  building  whose  eaves  extended 
over  a  continuous  flagged  porch— the  regulation  rest- 
house  built  by  government  for  the  use  of  traveling 
officials  and  other  Europeans. 

A  babel  of  angry  voices  came  from  the  back  of 
the  compound,  the  loud  talk  and  back  talk,  the  in- 
cessant wrangle  and  jangle  of  untuned  bells  and 
Hindu  servants,  the  most  quarrelsome  lower  class 
in  the  world,  after  the  Chinese.  Their  bickerings  are 
an  annoyance  that  frets  the  spirit  and  wears  the 
nerves  of  the  most  adamantine  traveler,  and  it  is 
no  wonder  that  the  Buddha,  and  all  saints  and  re- 
formers, first  fled  to  the  jungle  for  years  of  silent 
meditation.  The  keeper  of  the  bangla  appeared  with 
his  keys  and  a  lantern.  "Oh,  yes,  certingly,  mem- 
sahib,  ' '  he  had  received  the  telegram  in  due  time  and 
had  tightly  locked  up  the  bangla  and  his  own  quar- 
ters and  gone  soundly  to  sleep— Hindu  irresponsi- 
bility, ungraciousness,  and  indifference  to  the  usual 
degree. 

The  door  clanged  open  and  showed  us  the  regu- 
lation lofty,  cheerless,  cement-floored  room,  as  fit  for 
prison  as  superior  occupancy.  One  remembered 
those  creepy  "other  stories"  of  Rudyard  Kipling 
where  lunatics  and  delirium  tremens  subjects  hab- 
ited, and  suicides  took  themselves  off  in,  just  such 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMANS  37 

cheerless  rooms,  and  that  other  more  grisly  story  of 
the  dead  man  concealed  on  rafters  overhead  in  just 
such  a  forlorn  place.  The  candles  burning  sullenly 
in  tall  glass  bells  showed  us  a  great  dining-table, 
ponderous  arm-chairs  and  lounging-chair,  and  a 
broad  cane-seated  settee  for  a  bed.  Another  such 
hygienic  couch  of  the  country  was  brought  in 
from  a  black,  echoing  room  beyond,  and  the  ser- 
vants spread  out  our  red  razais,  or  wadded  calico 
quilts,  which  every  traveler  in  India  must  carry 
with  him  as  bedding  and  covering,  just  as  the 
Klondike  miner  carries  his  blankets  when  he  "hits 
the  trail."  The  rubber  pillows  were  inflated,  and 
the  apartment  was  completely  furnished  and  in 
order  for  occupancy.  Before  the  alcohol  lamp  had 
boiled  the  water  for  the  beef-tea  of  our  midnight 
feast,  the  servants  were  snoring  on  the  flags  of  the 
portico,  lying  on  the  door-mats  with  only  a  thin  bit 
of  dhurrie  covering  them,  despite  all  one  hears  of 
the  deadly  effect  of  night  air  and  the  chill  before  the 
dawn.  The  most  awful  stillness  succeeded,  a  silence 
that  made  one's  ears  ring,  hushed  our  voices,  and 
made  us  unconsciously  put  down  spoons  and  cups 
noiselessly.  No  one  had  raised  my  terrors  then  with 
tales  of  the  still  occasionally  existent  thugs  of 
southern  India,  of  thieves  who  throttle  by  night  and 
stealthily  kill  or  maim  an  unbeliever  as  an  act  ac- 
ceptable to  Kali  and  the  other  destroying  divinities. 
The  situation  was  all  novel  and  amusing,  and  the 
poverty-stricken  interior,  the  forlorn  banquet-hall  of 
this  Waldorf  of  the  neighborhood,  furnished  all  the 
real  color  one  could  want.     The  stealthy  dripping 


145320 


38  WINTER  INDIA 

of  the  trees  told  of  another  gentle  shower,  and  the 
steady  snoring  on  the  porch  was  as  comforting  and 
hypnotic  as  the  purring  of  a  home  cat  by  the  hearth 
— sufficient  assurance  that  all  was  well  at  one  o'clock 
and  that  the  British  government  in  India  still  lived 
and  protected  us. 

At  seven  o'clock  repeated  calls  brought  no  answer 
from  the  portico ;  the  silence  of  broad  daylight  was 
more  complete  than  that  of  midnight.  The  flagstones 
were  deserted,  and  not  a  sign  of  life  appeared  on 
either  side  of  the  bangla.  David  and  Daniel  had 
most  literally  taken  up  their  beds  and  walked — far 
away  beyond  hearing.  A  little  girl  with  a  nose-ring 
crept  out  and  looked  at  us,  another  one  joined  her, 
and  the  two  stared  and  smiled,  nodded  their  nose- 
rings with  friendly  flops,  and  looked  their  fill— a 
steady,  continuous,  fascinated  scrutiny — for  a  whole 
half-hour  before  David  and  Daniel  appeared  bearing 
tea  and  toast.  Then  David's  irate  voice  rose  in 
volume,  well-sweeps  creaked  and  tubs  were  filled, 
chickens  ran  cackling,  smoke  rose  and  sounds  of  life 
and  cheer  came  from  the  keeper's  house  and  kitchen. 
David  wrathfully  told  how  he  had  had  to  go  to  the 
village  bazaar,  a  mile  away,  to  get  even  the  firewood 
to  cook  the  first  breakfast. 

While  David  ruled  in  the  primitive  mud  kitchen 
the  keeper  of  the  bangla  laid  the  table  on  the  front 
portico,  overlooking  the  broad,  glistening  green 
lawn,  where  squirrels  frisked  and  little  green  par- 
rots squawked  and  flew  about.  The  china,  glass, 
and  cutlery  provided  at  these  dak  banglas  are  always 
good,  and  there  is  usually  some  attempt  at  splendor 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMAN8  39 

in  electroplated  toast-racks  and  marmalade-stands. 
Our  esthetic  keeper  of  Chidambram  put  a  great 
bouquet  of  yellow  crysanthemums  on  the  table,  but 
the  tablecloth  was  a  thick  honeycomb  stuff,  either  a 
bed-spread  or  a  bath-towel  that  some  guest  had  left 
behind;  and  it  was  frescoed  with  hospitable  records 
of  a  useful  past  in  egg,  coffee,  and  claret  stains  on  a 
ground  toned  by  the  roadside's  red  dust  of  a  season. 

The  local  magistrate  appeared  for  a  morning  call, 
entering  the  gates  in  a  large  bullock-bandy,  or  cov- 
ered cart,  drawn  by  two  magnificent  white  bul- 
locks with  humps  on  their  shoulders,  the  bells  on 
their  necks  announcing  the  pace  of  their  leisurely 
trot.  The  turbaned  and  white-draperied  grandee 
had  hardly  descended  from  this  seeming  vehicle  of 
state  or  chariot  of  religious  ceremony  when  the 
driver  loosened  the  yoke,  tilted  the  bandy  over,  and 
turned  the  splendid  creatures  loose  to  graze  on  the 
lawn.  This  custom  of  southern  India,  of  releasing 
bullocks  and  ponies  of  their  harness  at  once,  gives 
hotel  and  bangla  grounds  in  the  Madras  Presidency 
always  a  homely  look,  suggestive  alike  of  pasture, 
race-course,  and  stable-yard. 

The  magistrate  was  one  of  the  finer  types  of  high- 
caste  Hindu,  who  added  to  his  own  Brahmanic  cul- 
ture and  inherited  refinement  an  English  university 
education  and  acquaintance  with  other  ways  of  liv- 
ing and  thinking.  He  had  all  the  Oriental  suavity 
and  graceful  address,  and  talked  with  us  two  of  the 
despised  sex  quite  on  a  social  equality.  He  sat  long 
at  his  ease,  commenting  upon  the  customs  of  his  peo- 
ple and  the  peculiarities  of  life  and  architecture  in 


40  WINTER  INDIA 

southern  India.  He  deplored  the  low  estate  and 
want  of  education  among  women ;  praised  the  new 
era  and  the  blessings  of  British  rule,  the  good  roads, 
schools,  hospitals,  and  things  not  dreamed  of  before, 
that  had  come  with  the  Western  education,  which 
had  only  begun  to  reach  the  mass  of  the  people.  His 
Western  education  had  not,  however,  steeled  him  to 
shaking  hands  with  a  casteless  unbeliever,  and  he 
kept  tables  and  chairs  between  us  as  he  rose  to  go. 

"I  must  go  and  hurry  up  the  priests,"  said  the 
suave  judicial.  "Since  they  know  you  cannot  leave 
until  midnight,  they  will  not  try  to  be  ready  before 
late  afternoon.  At  one  o'clock  I  will  send  my  bandy 
and  peon  for  you.  You  will  find  my  bullocks  faster 
than  those  you  would  get  from  the  bazaar."  And 
with  more  beautiful  speeches  about  the  honor  of  our 
visit  to  Chidambram  and  our  appreciation  of  Dra- 
vidian  art,  he  backed  and  bowed  himself  away  to 
his  bandy,  with  furtive  glances  lest  we  yet  lay  de- 
filing hand  on  him,  and  send  him  through  all  the 
details  of  his  morning  toilet  again,  as  the  least  of 
ills. 

It  was  past  one  o'clock  when  the  stately  l5ulloeks 
again  tinkled  down  the  road  to  the  bangla ;  a  peon 
with  a  broad  sash  and  metal  plate  on  his  breast 
forming  an  escort  of  honor.  There  was  no  telling 
how  much  our  occupancy  defiled  the  magistrate's 
bandy  while  we  progressed  magnificently  along  a 
shaded  road,  between  garnered  fields  and  the  lines  of 
mud  houses  constituting  villages— mud  houses  with 
mud  floors,  and  mud  porticos  or  shelves  where  the 
occupants  loll  by  day  and  sleep  at  night.    Men  and 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMANS  41 

women  gave  friendly  looks,  the  women  draped  grace- 
fully in  the  single  long  sari,  or  winding-cloth,  that, 
either  red  or  white,  is  a  foil  to  the  dark  skin  and 
lends  majesty  and  picturesqueness  to  the  frowziest. 
Nearly  every  woman  wore  silver  bracelets  and  ank- 
lets, armlets,  finger-rings,  ear-rings,  nose-rings,  and 
necklaces  past  counting,  and  one  never  knows  what 
silver  jewelry  can  effect,  nor  its  artistic  value,  until 
he  sees  it  against  these  sooty  Tamil  skins. 

The  village  of  Chidambram  clusters  low  before  the 
soaring  gopura  of  this  oldest  Shivaite  temple  of  the 
south,  and  its  seventy  rest-houses  shelter  thousands 
of  pilgrims  at  every  December  mela.  Four  of  these 
great  pagoda-like  structures,  each  160  feet  in  height, 
carved,  painted,  and  gilded  over,  with  a  massive 
trisul,  or  trident  ornament  of  Shiva,  for  capstone, 
admit  to  the  quadrangular  space  of  thirty-two  acres 
occupied  by  the  labyrinth  of  shrines  and  courts  and 
halls  around  the  great  tank.  The  temple  was  built 
a  thousand  years  ago  by  a  pious  raja,  who  had  seen 
Shiva  and  Parvati  dancing  on  the  near-by  sea-shore ; 
and  the  holy  of  holies  is  a  golden  shrine  dedicated 
to  the  god  of  dancing.  Another  tradition  says  that 
a  Kashmir  prince  of  the  fifth  century  brought  three 
thousand  Brahmans  with  him  from  the  north  and 
founded  the  temple.  The  greatest  popularity  was 
given  the  temple  when  "the  golden-colored  em- 
peror," a  leper  prince  who  had  come  south  on  a 
pilgrimage,  was  cured  by  bathing  in  the  temple  tank, 
and  thousands  emulate  him  every  year. 

Repairs  were  being  executed  in  many  places,  at 
tht»  instance  of  a  pious  Hindu  of  Madras,  and  we 


42  WINTER  INDIA 

picked  our  way  through  damp  and  dripping  courts 
littered  with  freshly  carved  stones,  crawled  under 
scaffoldings  and  inclined  planks,  until  we  were  well 
confused  with  the  multiplicity  of  shrines,  the  gar- 
landed and  greased  images  of  Shiva,  Parvati,  Gane- 
sha,  and  the  Bull,  and  always  the  figure  of  the  danc- 
ing god  with  one  knee  acutely  bent  and  the  other  foot 
flung  with  abandon.  The  courts  were  empty,  the 
shrines  deserted,  no  worshipers,  no  workmen,  no 
priests,  no  crowd  of  idlers,  as  in  the  busy  Madura 
and  Srirangam  temples.  No  signs  of  preparation 
for  our  visit  were  evident,  and  we  sent  the  peon  and 
Daniel  and  lay  brethren  in  hot  haste  to  give  the 
alarm,  lest  the  function  be  delayed  past  sunset.  A 
few  languid  villagers  stole  in  and  stared,  the  longi- 
tudinal sect-mark  of  Vishnu  on  the  forehead  and  the 
loosely  drawn  dhotee  drapery  around  their  shoulders 
giving  them  a  strong  resemblance  to  our  red  Indians 
of  the  prairies  in  war-paint  and  reservation  blankets. 
Then  more  Avaiting  succeeded,  more  messengers  were 
despatched  with  more  vehement  advices,  and  Daniel, 
with  the  air  of  great  cares  pressing  on  him,  paced 
the  arcades  meditating,  speaking  now  and  then  with 
magnificent  gestures,  like  a  real  raja.  "My  birthly 
is  Christian,"  he  had  informed  us  in  the  first  sanctu- 
ary of  heathendom,  that  we  might  feel  free  to  com- 
ment and  question  at  will. 

A  band  of  Brahmans  in  fresh  war-paint  finally 
arrived,  and  their  fierce  hawk-like  gaze,  their  eager, 
excited,  hurried  air,  might  have  given  one  qualms  of 
alarm  at  our  isolation  in  this  labyrinthine  fortress 
of  a  temple,  remote  from  any  European  settlement, 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S   BRAHMANS  45 

and  miles  from  a  white  official  or  any  pale-face.  But 
Daniel  reassured  one  by  his  calm  magnificence,  his 
grandiloquent  phrases  and  evident  pride  in  the 
amazing  spectacle  which  he,  as  grand  impresario, 
was  about  to  present.  Three  hundred  of  these  high- 
est-caste Dikshatar  Brahmans,  or  priestly  ones,  de- 
scended from  a  first  Cholukyan  king,  they  say,  live 
with  their  families  within  the  temple  inclosure.  All 
are  rich,  enjoying  inherited  wealth  and  the  great 
income  which  this  popular  temple  derives  from  its 
votaries  and  pilgrims.  There  were  fine,  intelligent 
faces  among  them,  and,  barring  the  disfigurement 
of  the  painted  sect-mark  on  the  forehead,  one  could 
easily  appreciate  how  much  finer  is  the  type  and  the 
cast  of  countenance  of  these  long-descended  aris- 
tocrats than  the  common  Hindu  face  seen  in  bazaars 
and  street  crowds.  All  had  fine,  straight  noses,  level 
brows,  and  well-formed  heads,  the  hair  shaved  all 
around  the  edges  as  though  for  a  Chinese  queue,  and 
then  drawn  and  knotted  at  the  side  behind  the 
left  ear,  precisely  as  small  children  in  north  China 
twist  their  locks.  All  wore  the  white  dhotee,  twisted 
as  a  skirt  around  the  body,  left  nude  to  the  waist, 
save  as  one  and  another  chose  to  fling  the  end  of  the 
long  cloth  over  the  head  and  shoulders  as  protec- 
tion from  the  alternating  sun  and  rain.  The  sacred 
white  cord  over  one  shoulder  and  the  carved  Brah- 
man bead  on  a  thread  around  the  neck  were  the  only 
other  bits  of  apparel  worn,  although  each  one  car- 
ried, in  a  twist  of  the  girdle,  a  silver  or  brass  box 
filled  with  the  ashes  of  sandalwood  or  the  dung  of 
the  sacred  cow,  with  which  to  paint  the  caste-  and 


46  WINTER  INDIA 

sect-marks  on  their  brows.  Generations  of  superior 
folk,  carefully  nurtured,  highly  educated  and  cul- 
tivated in  Brahman  lore,  have  produced  these  splen- 
did specimens  of  their  race,  these  fine  intellectual 
faces  and  athletic  bodies  overlaid  Avith  dark-brown 
skin  of  a  grain  and  patina  finer  than  any  inani- 
mate bronze — aristocrats  of  thirty  centuries'  direct 
descent. 

They  looked  at  us,  their  prey,  with  eager  interest, 
and  with  shouts  appropriate  to  those  about  to  offer 
living  sacrifice  to  the  gods;  with  whoops  and  hur- 
rahs this  band  of  Brahmans  conducted  us  to  the 
main  shrine  and  struck  the  gong  to  announce  our 
presence  to  the  god— an  ugly,  greasy,  black  little 
image,  hidden  somewhere  out  of  sight  in  an  inner- 
most sanctuary.  We  saw  only  an  open- fronted 
chapel,  whose  floor  was  three  or  four  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  court-yard ;  and  as  we  advanced  to  it 
the  priests  brought  gold  plates  heaped  wath  garlands 
of  strung  flowers,  which  they  flung  around  our  necks. 
The  gold  plate  was  extended  for  our  ofl^erings,  and 
at  sight  of  the  rupees  of  propitiation  the  Brahmans 
pushed,  pointed,  gesticulated,  and  shouted  to  one 
another.  Only  the  Arabs  of  the  Nile,  or  the  boat- 
women  of  Canton,  could  raise  sucli  din  and  hulla- 
baloo, produce  such  waves  and  volumes  of  harsh, 
ear-splitting  sounds.  It  seemed  as  if  they  were  about 
to  tear  us  to  pieces  and  were  quarreling  about  the 
lead,  but  it  was  only  intense  interest,  pleased  excite- 
ment, and  glee  at  the  prospect  of  another  gala  day 
for  (^hidambram,  with  a  flne  lot  of  rupees  to  be 
divided  afterward  among  the  charter  members  of  the 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMANS  47 

close  corporation.  They  shouted,  screamed,  pushed, 
and  all  but  defiled  themselves  by  touching  us,  in 
order  to  point  out  things  to  us  and  attract  attention. 
A  half-dozen  tried  to  be  leaders  of  the  expedition, 
to  establish  a  special  protectorate  over  us,  each  lead- 
ing a  separate  way,  the  magistrate's  peon  making 
appealing  dumb  show  for  us  to  follow  him  in  an- 
other direction,  while  Daniel,  disentangling  himself 
from  the  Brahman  mob,  made  deprecatory  gestures 
to  them,  bowed  low  to  us,  swept  his  hand  obsequiously 
to  guide  us  in  a  still  different  quarter,  and  said  in 
mild,  honeyed  tones:  "This  way,  your  ladyships, 
this  way."  His  suavity  won,  and  all  garlanded,  as 
if  ready  for  slaughter,  and  preceded  by  the  band  of 
temple  musicians,  we  were  led  on  and  on,  from  shrine 
to  shrine,  the  hawk-eyed  Brahmans  shouting  wild 
acclaims,  just  as  in  a  triumphant  progress  on  the 
stage.  It  was  all  well-mounted  grand  opera,  a  deaf- 
ening Wagnerian  representation ;  and  when  we  stood 
with  the  great  chorus  grouped  before  one  gilded 
shrine  with  a  golden  roof  and  a  golden  flag-staff — 
a  mainmast  plated  with  hammered  gold — it  was  a 
fine  scene  for  the  curtain  to  have  fallen  on.  They  led 
us  to  a  store-room  full  of  silver  palanquins,  chariots 
and  platforms,  silver  bulls,  elephants,  goats,  and  pea- 
cocks, and  explained  how  these  and  the  sacred  images 
are  drawn  in  procession  through  Chidambram  streets 
and  courts  on  the  great  days  of  the  heathen  year. 
There  the  temple  musicians  fought  and  won  chance 
for  fullest  action  ;  and  drum,  trumpets,  and  castanets 
raised  such  echoing  din  in  the  holy  inelosure  that  we 
were  literally  distracted  when,  having  ''visited  the 


48  WINTER  INDIA 

architectures,  "we  were  conducted  to  the  treasury  and 
given  chairs  around  a  long,  low  table  covered  with  a 
greasy  red-silk  cover.  Deafened  by  the  thump  and 
blast  of  instruments  and  the  vent  of  sacerdotal  lungs, 
and  overpowered  by  the  weight  and  suffocating  odors 
of  the  garlands  of  jasmine,  tuberoses,  marigolds, 
and  chrysanthemums  around  our  necks,  we  let  those 
twenty-pound  weights  of  vegetable  adornments  slip 
on  to  the  backs  of  the  chairs,  and  had  Daniel  hint  to 
the  Brahmans  that  our  presents  to  the  temple  would 
be  greater  if  the  noise  were  less.  He  explained  deli- 
cately that  we  were  from  another  country  than  that 
of  the  usual  visitors  to  Chidambram ;  that  people  in 
America  were  accustomed  to  speak  in  soft,  low  voices, 
and  to  keep  very  silent  in  their  temples.  What  a 
Talleyrand  was  spoiled  when  that  soul  in  its  present 
incarnation  habited  the  body  of  Trichinopoli  's  great 
guide !  Daniel  spoke,  and  the  hush  of  midnight  suc- 
ceeded for  about  ten  seconds.  Then  the  Brahmans 
whispered ;  their  buzz  rose  to  audible  speech,  and  our 
ear-drums  were  again  violently  beaten  until  the 
mercenary  company  was  hushed  by  significant  ges- 
tures from  Daniel.  The  musicians  fingered  their 
instruments  sadly,  but  Daniel  was  supreme,  and 
when  one  strapping  head  Brahman  fully  caught  the 
cue,  he  outdid  Daniel  in  silencing  the  sacerdotal 
screamers  for  the  rest  of  the  afternoon. 

When  the  magistrate  came,  followed  by  temple 
peons  bearing  great  boxes  tied  up  in  red  silk,  he 
brought  with  him  his  six-year-old  daughter,  Thun- 
gama,  the  "little  golden  lady,"  as  her  pet  name  was 


WITH  CHIDAMBRAM'S  BRAHMANS  49 

translated,  a  disdainful,  arrogant  mite,  who  snubbed 
us  soundly,  but  gave  such  cool,  supercilious  glances 
of  high-caste  scorn  from  such  deep,  dark,  liquid, 
mysterious  eyes  that  we  forgave  her.  She  wore  a 
little  cotton  skirt  and  jacket,  and  silver  anklets ;  and 
her  hair,  divided  at  the  brow  in  two  plaits  that 
framed  the  face,  held  a  semicircular  rayed  ornament 
of  pearls.  This  star-eyed  beauty  did  not  want  to 
be  looked  at  nor  addressed  by  us,  and  had  a  dread  of 
being  touched  by  pale  strangers  with  uncovered 
faces  and  no  caste-marks,  stamps,  or  guarantees  of 
position  on  their  broAvs.  This  imperious  mite  ruled 
her  father  royally,  received  the  respectful  homage 
of  the  sleek  old  Brahmans,  and  was  petted  and 
passed  from  papa  to  priest  and  peon  as  suited  her 
whims.  There  was  the  finest  ethnological  exhibit 
around  that  treasury  table, — the  magistrate,  his 
daughter,  and  ourselves  in  front,  and  the  Brahmans 
ranged  in  triple  circle  of  fine,  spirited  faces  above 
splendid  shoulders,  a  prosperous-looking,  sleek,  and 
well-groomed  board  of  temple  aldermen,  directors  of 
that  close  corporation  of  Chidambram,  living  for 
so  many  generations  on  the  fat  of  the  land  and  the 
offerings  of  pilgrims,  and  inheriting  the  intellectual 
monopoly  of  ages.  Each  one  had  been  invested  in 
his  youth  with  the  sacred  Avhite  cord,  had  served  his 
time  of  probation,  had  married  and  raised  a  family, 
and  now  was  enjoying  his  magnificent  prime  before 
disappearing  from  Chidambram  and  following  the 
strict  Brahman  routine  of  the  end  of  life.  It  seemed 
amazing  that  there  should  be  a  community  where 


50  WINTER  INDIA 

the  physical  average  was  so  high;  and  commenting 
on  the  many  fine,  noble,  and  dignified  countenances 
and  the  statuesque  shoulders,  Daniel  explained  it 
all:  ''Yes,  the  Brahmans  are  always  splendid  of 
appearance  like  these.  It  is  the  hereditary  lieirness 
of  their  high  descent." 


CHAPTER   IV 

FOR   THE   HONOR   AND   GLORY    OF    SHIVA 

HE  temple  jewels  are  kept  in  iron- 
bound  chests  in  a  room  fastened  by 
many  locks.  The  magistrate,  the  high 
priest,  and  a  half-dozen  other  Brah- 
mans  of  different  castes  each  holds  a 
key,  and  all  must  be  present  to  unlock  the  room. 
Count  and  record  are  kept  of  each  article ;  many  of 
the  jewels  are  historic  and  famous,  and  all  are  so 
well  knoA\Ti  to  the  community  that  the  loss  of  even 
one  stone  would  be  as  quickly  noted  on  display  days 
as  the  disappearance  of  an  idol  itself.  When  the 
jewels  are  thus  shown,  it  is  customary  for  visitors 
to  leave  from  ten  to  twenty  rupees  for  cleansing 
them  pure  from  outcast  touch.  The  rupee  is  a 
great  leveler,  and  has  purifying  effect  unaided ; 
for  nothing  could  be  dingier,  greasier,  more  in  need 
of  alcohol,  jeweler's  sawdust,  and  a  touch  of  chamois 
than  these  jewels  of  Chidambram,  unless  it  were 
the  jewels  at  Srirangam  or  the  famously  dirty  sap- 
phires at  IMadura. 

There  was  earnest  effort  and  long  parley  over  a 
first  iron-bound  chest  that  would  not  open.  All  the 
head  Brahmans  shouted  and  struggled  with  the  ob- 
durate padlock  until  the  key  broke.    An  agile  brother 

51 


52  WINTER  INDIA 

whipped  out  a  knife  and  tried  to  pick  the  lock,  with 
an  assurance  that  bespoke  familiarity  with  such  pro- 
cesses, but  the  rusty  clamp  would  not  yield.  A  longer 
and  a  louder  clamor,  and  then  a  lusty  Brahman 
seized  one  of  the  big  keys  on  the  table,  a  bar  of  iron 
as  solid  as  the  key  of  the  Bastille,  and  began  ham- 
mering the  clasp,  laying  on  blacksmith's  blows  with 
a  will.  The  padlock  flew  off,  the  heavy  lid  creaked 
back,  and  with  deafening  yells  the  riches  of  Chidam- 
bram  came  in  view. 

They  drew  out  all  the  jeweled  ornaments,  the 
crowns,  caps,  hand-  and  arm-coverings,  necklaces, 
ear-rings,  nose-rings,  bracelets,  anklets,  and  staffs 
given  to  the  temple's  precious  idols  for  centuries 
back,  laid  them  on  the  table,  and  passed  them  to  us 
to  handle  and  defile  at  will.  The  Brahmans  shouted, 
talked,  oh'd  and  ah'd,  stretched  hands  over  our 
shoulders  to  call  attention  to  some  special  beauty  or 
marvel,  and  even  snatched  them  from  our  hands. 
Their  eyes  shone  and  their  faces  glowed  with  pride 
and  joy  in  these  treasures,  their  delight  at  seeing 
them  childlike  in  its  expression.  They  all  told  at 
once  how  the  ruby  bracelets  were  given  the  goddess 
by  the  rani,  wife  of  the  Raja  of  Tanjore,  in  fulfil- 
ment of  a  vow ;  and  how,  when  the  pious  rani  learned 
that  the  goddess  had  no  ear-bosses,  she  despoiled  her 
own  jewel-boxes  of  her  most  magnificent  ones.  Then 
they  told  of  Patcheapper  Mudalier,  the  rich  man  of 
Madras,  who  had  given  the  goddess  pairs  of  gold 
serpents  scaled  over  with  great  jewels;  and,  at  the 
sale  of  the  effects  of  the  late  Raja  of  Tanjore  in 
1891,  had  bought  and  presented  the  temple  with  a 


FOR  THE  HONOR  AND  GLORY  OF  SHIVA   53 

huge  Phrygian  cap,  or  war-bonnet,  covered  with 
hundreds  of  cabochon  rubies  and  table-cut  diamonds, 
along  with  a  great  breastplate  over  six  inches 
square,  set  solidly  with  large  flat  rubies— rubies  of 
the  most  perfect  tint,  and  set  double,  ruby  on  top 
of  ruby,  as  was  the  old  Hindu  custom,  until  the 
depth  and  richness  of  color  surpass  anything  to  be 
otherwise  obtained.  Patcheapper  had  not  only  given 
modern  jewels,  but  he  had  had  the  old  gems  reset, 
adding  lost  stones  to  historic  settings,  and  putting 
the  accumulation  of  loose  stones  into  telling  form. 

Two  enormous  water-bottles  of  solid  gold  were 
lifted  out— ''for  bringing  the  sacred  water  to  wash 
the  goddess,"  said  Daniel.  "Six  thousand  rupees! 
Six  thousand  rupees ! ' '  yelled  the  Brahmans,  anxious 
to  impress  us  with  the  exceeding  value  of  these  toilet 
articles.  A  two-foot-long  pendant  of  linked  medal- 
lions set  with  rubies  and  diamonds,  worn  hanging 
from  the  back  of  the  goddess's  crown,  was  vouched 
for  as  valued  at  twenty-five  thousand  rupees,  and  a 
huge  crested  headpiece  glowing  with  gems  was 
quoted  at  thirty  thousand  rupees ;  and  then,  through 
Daniel,  the  Brahmans  were  besought  kindly  to  omit 
price-marks  and  quarreling  over  and  outbidding  one 
another  in  values,  since  we  had  not  come  to  buy  nor 
to  appraise  the  temple  jewels,  and  had  no  interest  in 
their  money  value. 

That  shabby  table  was  spread  over  with  more 
precious  things  than  one  can  remember— gold 
crowns,  crests,  tiaras,  plumes,  bosses  for  the  ears, 
ornaments  for  the  hair  and  the  forehead,  nose-rings, 
necklaces,  armlets,  bracelets,  zones,  girdles,  anklets, 


54  WINTER  INDIA 

and  every  possible  article  of  Hindu  jewelry  worn 
for  these  two  thousand  years— forms  and  designs 
but  little  changed  in  two  thousand  years;  the  same 
ancient,  archaic  Swami  or  Dravidian  style  of  orna- 
ments having  been  worn  centuries  before  Chidam- 
bram's  building,  according  to  the  sculptured  records 
of  the  Buddhist  monuments.  Every  piece  was 
crusted  over,  inlaid  with  rubies  and  diamonds,  sap- 
phires, emeralds,  and  pearls;  with  emeralds  as  big 
as  bullets— great  drops  of  green  dew ;  with  sapphires 
the  size  of  filberts  and  walnuts,  sunk  in  pure,  dull 
yellow  gold  as  soft  as  wax.  There  were  rubies, 
rubies,  rubies— rubies  everywhere— thick  as  pebbles 
on  a  beach,— and  all  of  them  smoothly  rounded 
drops,  blobs,  or  uneven  lumps  of  warm  and  splendid 
color  that  went  to  the  heart.  A  Western  lapidary 
or  jeweler  would  scoff  at  and  perhaps  scorn  these 
masses  of  roughly  cut  cabochon  gems,  whose  flaws 
and  feathers  and  cloudings  make  them  of  little  com- 
mercial but  of  such  great  artistic  value.  Crystalline 
perfection  was  not  the  first  test  which  the  old  Hindu 
jewelers  applied  to  their  gems.  With  an  eye  first 
to  color  effects  and  rich  combinations  of  color,  all 
the  flawed  stones,  the  splinters  and  scales  and  pin- 
points of  color,  had  their  value  to  them,  and  with 
them  they  achieved  results  of  such  richness,  such 
gorgeousness  and  splendor,  that  our  mechanically 
perfect,  geometrically  exact,  many-faceted,  flashing 
gems  of  Western  jewelry  seem  cold,  characterless, 
expressionless  beside  these  living  gems  of  the  East. 
We  were  fairly  dizzy  with  the  glow  and  glitter  and 
gorgeousness  of  the  display,  the  feast  of  gems  and 


FOR  THE  HONOR  AND  GLORY  OF  SHIVA        55 

flow  of  jewels,  the  barbaric  splendors  literally  heaped 
upon  Oriental  magnificence  within  touch  before  us. 
One  hardly  knows  the  ruby,  its  glorious  tones,  its 
true  uses  and  possibilities,  until  he  has  had  some 
such  feast  of  rubies  in  an  Indian  temple,  and  the 
taste  there  acquired  is  little  satisfied  afterward  with 
the  glassy,  regular  polyhedrons  of  the  West.  That 
deep,  clear,  warm  red  ruby,  the  concentration  of  all 
heat  and  gorgeous  light,  the  glowing,  burning  stone 
of  the  tropics,  is  India's  own,  its  most  typical,  trop- 
ical gem.  It  became  hard  to  believe,  though,  that 
rubies  were  rare  and  precious  when,  after  all  seen 
elsewhere,  Chidambram's  Brahmans  laid  plates  and 
sheets  of  rubies— dozens,  hundreds,  thousands  of 
them— before  us.  One  could  almost  think  they  came 
like  buttons  on  a  haberdasher's  card,  and  that  one 
bought  them  by  the  gross  or  great  gross  as  required, 
or  by  dry  measure  perhaps— by  heaped-up  pints 
and  overflowing  quarts. 

For  nearly  two  hours  we  handled  the  collars  and 
crowns  and  ornaments  passed  out  to  us,  until  we 
were  well  surfeited  with  splendors,  until  pear- 
shaped  pearls  in  rains  and  fringes  could  excite  no 
more  surprise,  until  big  tallow-drop  emeralds  were 
the  common  thing,  and  star  sapphires  had  to  be  of 
thumb 's-end  size  to  command  any  praise.  Ropes  of 
necklaces  made  of  overlapping  gold  pieces  clanged  in 
dead  weight  on  the  table;  the  famous  parrot  cut 
from  a  single  emerald  was  produced  ^^^th  cheers, 
and  broad  manacle-bracelets,  set  with  ancient  stones 
recut  in  European  facetings,  closed  the  list.  The 
lid  of  the  last  chest  was  slammed  down,  the  Brah- 


56  WINTER   INDIA 

mans  voiced  their  pent-up  joy,  and  we  sank  back  in 
our  chairs,  well  exhausted  with  the  strain  of  long- 
continued  attention  to  such  dazzling  surprises.  More 
flower  garlands  were  dropped  on  our  shoulders  and 
enormous  bouquets  were  presented  us.  Trays  of 
fruit  and  cake  and  sugar  things  were  offered,  which 
we  formally  praised,  accepted,  and  touched  accord- 
ing to  custom ;  and,  by  the  same  sign  and  custom, 
we  never  saw  the  defiled  stuff  again. 

The  musicians  struck  up  a  deafening  paean,  the 
crowd  in  the  courtyard  made  way,  and  we  were  borne 
triumphantly  on  for  the  great  Nautch  dance  in  the 
choltry,  or  Hall  of  a  Thousand  Columns.  That 
noblest  Brahman  of  them  all,  who  had  maintained  a 
particular  protectorate  over  us  in  the  jewel-room 
and  so  summarily  checked  the  other  Brahmans  when 
they  extolled  the  jewels  too  full-lunged,  all  but  gave 
his  arm  as  he  escorted  us  across  the  court,  waving 
the  others  aside  or  pushing  them  with  force  when 
necessary.  This  arch-heathen,  Pattu  Thacheadar, 
the  Superb,  highest-caste  Dikshatar  Brahman  of  the 
white  cord  and  the  carved  bead,  was  altogether 
the  finest  specimen  Chidambram  afforded,  and 
sculptor  or  painter  would  equally  delight  in  him  as 
model.  This  big  Brahman  beau-ed  us  gallantly 
across  the  courts,  up  into  the  lofty  pillared  hall,  and 
seated  us  in  the  waiting  arm-chairs  with  a  grace  and 
address  that  would  have  become  a  leader  of  cotillions 
—barefooted,  with  only  a  red-bordered  sheet  for  his 
full-dress  uniform  of  social  ceremony ! 

The  magistrate,  in  his  scholarly,  gold-bowed 
spectacles,  and  the  disdainful  little  goddess,  Thun- 


l-Alir   THAClllCADAK. 


FOR  THE  HONOR  AND  GLORY  OF  SHIVA   59 

gama,  throned  upon  the  peons'  shoulders,  were  with 
US;  and  the  august  company  of  Brahmans  seated 
themselves  in  a  half-circle  upon  the  stone  floor, 
Pattu,  the  Superb,  towering  head  and  shoulders  in 
the  front  row  of  the  highest-caste  marks.  There  was 
a  May-pole  in  the  middle  of  the  vaulted  hall,  hung 
over  with  long  streamers. 

Six  barefooted,  neat-looking  colored  girls  in 
starched  muslin  dress  skirts  and  velvet  jackets  of 
antiquated  cut  and  no  fit  whatever,  stepped  forward 
and,  in  methodical  march  and  countermarch  to  a 
nasal  chorus,  braided  the  May-pole's  ribbons  down 
to  their  hands;  in  reverse  order  unbraided  them, 
and  stepped  demurely  back  in  line.  We  were  breath- 
less with  surprise. 

Was  that  the  famous  sacred  temple  dance  ?  Could 
six  octoroons,  matter-of-fact  young  "  yaller  gals," 
shuffling  slowly  around  a  May-pole,  ever  give  rise  to 
such  visions  of  beauty  and  grace  as  only  the  name 
of  the  Nautch  dance  conjures  up  ?  Oh,  no !  It  was 
surely  coming  next.  There  would  be  something 
graceful  and  bewitching,  something  in  gorgeous  na- 
tive costume,  after  this  purposely  tame  and  tedious 
cake-walk  by  colored  church  members  in  velveteen 
basques  trimmed  with  cotton  lace. 

The  same  wooden  young  persons  marched  out 
again  in  line.  We  cheered  ourselves,  noting  then 
that  they  were  almost  Oriental  from  the  collar  up- 
ward—what with  necklaces  and  ear-studs  and  ear- 
rings looped  back  to  the  decorated  waterfall,  the 
"bath  bun"  of  hair  at  the  back  of  their  heads,  and 
nose-rings   whose    lowest    pearl    trembled    on    their 


60  WINTER   INDIA 

lips,  the  literal  pearls  of  speech.  "We  questioned 
Daniel  closely  to  know  if  these  really  were  the 
picked  dancers,  the  flower  of  Chidambram 's  beauties ; 
if  he  had  never  seen  them  dance  in  voluminous, 
diaphanous,  graceful  native  dress? 

"No,  your  ladyship.  These  are  their  richest 
clothings.  You  see  the  magnificent  velvets  of  their 
costumes.  They  never  wear  the  common  sari  now 
that  they  have  tltese.  It  is  always  this  splendid 
dress  they  wear  for  the  dancing  when  I  bring  Euro- 
pean visitors." 

The  dance  went  on,  a  tame  and  tedious  cake-walk, 
purely  callisthenic  school-girl  exercise  to  the  end, 
save  in  one  or  two  less  shuffling  measures  where  they 
made  undeniable  eyes  at  us,  posed  one  finger  against 
the  cheek,  and  looked  unutterable  archness.  ' '  Notice 
the  postures,  see  the  sentiments  of  the  countenance," 
said  Daniel,  who  was  a  connoisseur  in  such  dances, 
and  gifted  with  the  second  sight  needed  to  make 
anything  at  all  fascinating  out  of  the  languid 
measures.  "It  is  praise  of  the  goddess,"  said  the 
old  gentleman,  rapturously,  delighted  with  the 
spectacle.  But  such  a  dreary  ballet!  Such  a  mo- 
notonous walk-around  to  minor  airs  thumped  and 
blown  by  the  earnest  temple  musicians,  and  plaintive 
choruses  wailed  by  the  dancers  themselves,  would 
never  fill  a  theater  nor  a  side-show  in  the  West,  and 
the  Midway  Plaisance  would  have  closed  for  lack 
of  patronage  had  its  Oriental  dances  been  like  this. 

The  sun  struggled  through  the  clouds  and  sent 
shafts  and  ladders  of  gold  down  from  the  high  win- 
dows, that,  touching  the  white  draperies  of  the  seated 


FOR  THE  HONOR  AND  GLORY  OF  SHIVA        61 

Brahmans,  illuminated  them  as  if  with  lime-light. 
Pattu  Thaeheadar  was  radiant  and  smiling,  nodding 
his  approval  and  delight,  and  enjoying  the  great 
day  and  his  prominent  part  in  it  with  all  of  a  boy's 
vain  glee.  He  hung  upon  and  watched  closely  the 
evolutions  of  the  dancers,  and  all  the  Brahmans 
buzzed  approval  when  the  six  advanced  and  re- 
treated, rapping  little  sticks  together  in  the  measure 
of  some  very  old  dance  to  Shiva.  That  was  the  live- 
liest measure  trod— very  literally  trod,  with  the  flat 
of  the  bare  foot— by  these  star-eyed  serpents  and  en- 
chanters of  the  Coromandel  coast. 

*'It  is  the  most  difficult  to  do  this  dance,  you  see. 
They  are  trained  to  it  from  little  girls.  Their  limbs 
are  very  movable,"  said  Daniel,  aglow  with  delight. 

When  the  placid  program  came  to  an  end,  Daniel 
put  on  his  spectacles,  took  his  place  by  the  May-pole, 
and,  more  like  a  head  schoolmaster  giving  diplomas 
than  like  the  grand  almoner  of  royalty,  presented 
a  rupee  to  each  girl.  Each  one  advanced  and  re- 
ceived it  with  a  bow,  and  each  one  then  stepped  on 
to  us,  stood  rigid,  and  made  the  regulation  military 
salute  with  one  hand — a  figure  only  a  little  more 
formal  and  automatic  than  the  whole  gay  revel  of 
the  sacred  dance  had  been,  something  very  plainly 
learned  from  a  British  drill-sergeant's  code.  The 
musicians  received  their  gratuities  in  the  same  formal 
manner,  and  the  Brahmans,  dancers,  and  orchestra 
trooped  with  us  down  the  hall  to  the  court  surround- 
ing the  temple  tank,  where  the  afternoon  sun  lighted 
a  scene  of  splendor  and  picturesqueness.  Despite 
the  late  and  yellow  light,  I  snapped  the  camera  to 


62  WINTER  INDIA 

right  and  left,  on  gilded  gopuras,  the  mirror  tank, 
and  the  staircase  of  the  great  hall  where  the  dancers 
and  Brahmans  were  grouped  unconscious.  Little 
Thungama  and  her  adoring  peon  stood  for  me ;  and 
then  Pattu  Thacheadar,  special  protector  and  per- 
sonal conductor,  impresario,  and  grand  manager  of 
the  Brahman  troupe,  was  asked  to  take  the  steps,  to 
pose  magnificent,  all  flower-garlanded  as  he  was.  He 
assented  with  excited  delight,  the  other  Brahmans 
shouted  their  satisfaction,  and  with  much  chaff  and 
back-talk  to  his  Brahman  brethren,  this  splendid 
creature  spread  out  his  flower  necklaces  and  stood, 
facing  the  sun,  breathing  slowly  and  not  winking 
for  seconds  after  the  button  was  pressed. 

The  bullock-bandy  carried  us  and  our  load  of  floral 
gifts  home  to  the  bangla,  and  after  a  quick  dinner  and 
long  nap  carried  us  on  to  the  station,  where  Pattu, 
the  Superb,  was  parading  the  platform  in  waiting. 
He  had  walked  the  eight  miles  to  take  leave  of  us, 
to  present  more  flower  garlands  and  a  rare  lemon 
brought  from  a  grove  some  miles  away  on  the  Coro- 
mandel  coast.  He  wore  classic  sandals,  or  shoes 
bound  by  rawhide  thongs,  and  the  end  of  his  long 
white  drapery  was  thrown  up  over  his  head  and 
shoulders  like  an  Arab  burnoose.  He  swung  a  quaint, 
archaic  lantern,  and  in  the  flashes  of  light  from  the 
station-rooms  he  was  more  paintable  and  operatic 
than  at  the  temple.  And  this  son  of  the  Sun,  de- 
scendant of  ten  thousand  Brahmans,  masher  of  most 
magnificent  order,  was  posing  for  effect  as  unmis- 
takably as  others  of  his  kind  pose  in  Western  draw- 
ing-rooms—the handsome  man  and  his  little  arts — 
the  same  transparency  the  world  over. 


FOR  THE  HONOR  AND  GLORY  OF  SHIVA   63 

The  station-master  interpreted  for  him  while  we 
waited  a  whole  midnight  hour  for  the  train.  Pattu 
wanted  to  know  when  we  would  come  to  Chidam- 
bram  again ;  how  far  away  was  America ;  how  many 
days  would  it  take  us  to  get  back  there ;  how  much 
would  it  cost ;  had  we  railways  there ;  or  any  tem- 
ples as  splendid  as  Chidambram. 

"Then,"  said  the  station-master,  "he  has  been 
telling  me  of  the  great  festival  at  the  temple  to-day. 
He  says  there  was  a  crowd  there  to  see  the  dance, 
more  than  two  hundred  Brahmans,  and  he  was  the 
best-looking  man  there,  and  you  took  his  picture  to 
carry  to  America  to  show." 

Oh !  Pattu !    Pattu  Thacheadar ! 


CHAPTER   V 

MADRAS  AND   THE  SEVEN   PAGODAS 

E  had  expected  to  have  another  feast 
of  jewels  at  Conjeveram,  the  Benares 
of  southern  India,  but  at  Chingleput 
Junction  the  constable  from  that  sa- 
cred city  vfas  waiting  to  tell  us  that 
we  could  not  see  the  temple  jewels,  owung  to  a  recent 
theft  of  three  thousand  rupees'  worth  of  treasure 
and  the  arrest  of  the  head  high  priest,  who  held  one  of 
the  five  keys.  ' '  I  have  just  brought  forty  Brahmans 
up  with  me  as  witnesses.  There  has  been  a  big  quar- 
rel on  among  the  high-caste  families,  one  trying 
to  run  the  other  out;  but  as  all  the  temple  offices, 
even  the  keepers  of  the  oil,  are  hereditary,  only  civil 
suits  and  criminal  imprisonment  ever  oust  them. 
Each  steals  a  little  from  the  god  himself,  but  does 
not  want  any  one  else  to  do  so. ' ' 

AVhen  we  arrived  at  the  great  railway  station  of 
Madras,  the  largest  and  oldest  city  in  southern  India, 
with  a  population  of  half  a  million,  there  were  no 
European  vehicles  to  be  had— only  bullock-carts  and 
the  bandbox  jutkas,  or  native  pony-cabs.  "There 
is  a  convention  of  ^riieosophists  on  now, ' '  said  the  sta- 
tion-master in  explanation,  but  he  could  not  tell  what 
people  with  astral  bodies  wanted  with  material  cabs. 

64 


MADRAS  AND  THE  SEVEN  PAGODAS  65 

The  jutka  was  such  torture  and  indignity  that  we 
walked  the  last  block  to  the  hotel  in  a  great  garden, 
where  a  hen-brained  lot  of  "don't-know"  servants 
held  the  summer-house,  which  served  as  hotel  office. 

There  were  no  manager,  no  rooms,  no  memoran- 
dum of  our  telegrams,  no  anything  at  this  only  hotel. 
There  was  no  other  place  to  go;  no  steamer  leaving 
for  five  days.  The  butler  led  us  to  a  neglected  row 
of  rooms  that  we  might  prepare  for  tiffin  and  await 
the  return  of  the  manager.  Ants  ran  riot  over  the 
beds  and  the  torn  matting  on  the  dirty  cement 
floor;  the  ragged,  brown  mosquito-netting  suggested 
horrors  in  the  darkness ;  and  the  bath-water  of  days 
ago  stood  iridescent  in  the  tubs.  We  retreated  to 
the  stone  porch  and  then  to  the  dining-room,  where 
there  was  painted  as  a  decorative  frieze:  "Recom- 
mend us.  Recommend  us.  The  best  hotel  in  India. " 
There  was  a  veteran  table  cloth,  but  a  charming  floral 
decoration,  and  we  were  served  a  pallid  and  taste- 
less soup,  potato  croquettes,  grilled  bones,  and  "corn- 
flower cream,"  i.e.,  a  watery  blanc-mange.  Mean- 
while, our  robust  British  table  neighbors— all  resi- 
dent Anglo-Indians,  with  a  proper  scorn  for  tourists 
—ate  broiled  birds,  dressed  the  most  inviting  tomato- 
salads,  and  closed  their  feast  with  red  bananas  and 
cheese.  "  Oh  !  that  belongs  gentlemans.  Gentlemans 
self  buy  bazaar,"  hissed  the  butler,  when  we  had 
sternly  pointed  to  and  ordered  birds  and  salad  and 
bananas. 

Then  the  manager  came  and  bowed  us  into  a  car- 
riage and  off  to  a  branch  house,  "a  residential 
hotel,"  where  he  said  he  had  most  spacious  rooms 


66  WINTEK  INDIA 

reserved.  Remembering  the  bath-tubs,  the  grilled 
bones,  and  the  legend  on  the  dining-room  walls  of 
the  parent  establishment,  we  had  small  expectation 
of  anything  sybaritic  at  the  offshoot  hostelry.  Yet 
we  were  rewarded  with  a  great  mansion,  in  a  garden 
that  was  almost  a  park ;  the  house  was  clean  and  ad- 
mirably kept  by  a  black,  black  butler,  twin  to  the 
end-man  of  the  old  minstrel  shows. 

We  drove  miles  and  miles  through  tree-lined  streets 
to  the  water-front  of  the  city  to  find  the  post,  tele- 
graph, and  steamship  offices  and  the  bank.  All  Ma- 
dras and  all  southern  India,  planters  from  Banga- 
lur  and  the  Nilgiri  Hills,  and  officials  from  every- 
where, were  doing  their  Christmas  shopping  those 
days,  the  races  were  on,  and  the  streets  and  bazaars 
were  full  of  life  and  animation.  We  drove  into 
beautiful  grounds  and  around  under  a  great  portico 
of  a  mansion  to  find  the  chemist 's  shop ;  into  another 
splendid  place  to  find,  not  the  lord  chief  justice,  but 
the  grocer;  and  this  extravagance  of  space  makes 
Madras  a  city  of  frightfully  magnificent  distances. 

The  burnt-cork  butler  welcomed  us  home  to  our 
residential  hotel,  himself  brought  the  dainty  tea-tray 
to  the  marble-floored  portico,  and  stood  by  with 
ear-to-ear  smiles,  watching  us  enjoy  his  crisp  toast 
and  fresh  seed-cakes.  We  began  to  have  a  Christmas 
feeling  of  peace  and  good  will  to  all  Madras.  The 
loggia  was  so  attractive  that  we  ordered  dinner  to 
be  served  there,  rather  than  dress  and  dine  with  any 
more  self-supplying  guests,  as  at  that  "best  hotel  in 
India. ' '  The  butler  assented  joyfully,  a  whole  min- 
strel troupe  ran  in  with  bouquets,  fruit  pyramids, 


MADRAS  AND  THE  SEVEN  PAGODAS  60 

candle-bells,  and  a  British  profusion  of  electroplated 
furnishings.  The  butler,  three  assistants,  David  and 
Daniel,  a  pankha  boy,  and  whispering  coolies  un- 
counted beyond  the  latticed  door,  combined  to  serve 
a  good  dinner  to  perfection.  We  wondered  how  the 
residential  guests  were  faring  with  so  much  of  the 
headquarters  staff  on  duty  in  our  apartment,  and 
the  next  day  learned  that  we  were  the  only  guests 
in  the  new  hotel ;  that  the  invisible  manager  was  a 
myth,  and  the  black  butler  the  greatest  Pooh  Bah 
off  the  stage. 

Madras  residents  had,  long  in  advance,  engaged  all 
the  "budgery-boats"  on  the  Buckingham  Canal  for 
Christmas  week;  and  instead  of  one  of  those  com- 
fortable house-boats,  where  civilized  existence  con- 
tinues its  regular  routine,  we  had  to  content  our- 
selves with  a  coal-barge— a  "spacious  and  com- 
modious fourteen-passenger-boat, "  Samuel  Daniel 
called  it— for  the  visit  to  the  Seven  Pagodas,  the 
ruins  of  IMahabalipur.  Our  Turveydrop  assured  us 
that  all  tourists  went  in  such  craft;  that  Bishop 
Phillips  Brooks  had  traveled  that  way  to  see  this  one 
of  the  seven  great  wonders  of  the  Indian  world ;  and 
as  he  talked  on,  we  almost  forgot  the  ignominious 
cargo-lighter. 

The  guide-book  said  to  pay  seven  rupees  for  such 
a  boat  to  go  to  the  Seven  Pagodas;  the  butler  said 
fifty  rupees ;  Daniel  and  David  stoutly  maintained 
fifteen  rupees;  and  we  finally  gave  ten  rupees.  Coal- 
barge  No.  1350  was  some  twenty  feet  long,  with  a 
mat  roof,  side  awnings,  and  a  single  mast ;  and  when 
swept,  scrubbed,  and  drenched  under  our  eyes,  we 


70  WINTER  INDIA 

embarked  with  mattresses,  chairs,  a  few  pots  and 
pans  and  provisions  from  the  hotel,  and  a  great  sup- 
ply of  our  own  stores  to  augment  the  tiffin-basket. 
Instead  of  driving  to  Marmalong  or  Guindy  Bridge, 
and  trusting  to  meet  the  dilatory  boatmen  there,  we 
embarked  at  Governor's  Basin,  and  for  reward 
found  the  Buckingham  Canal  drag  a  stagnant,  sew- 
ery  way  past  Madras  commons  and  dead  walls,  past 
hedges  and  kitchen-gardens,  for  six  miles  to  Guindy 
Bridge,  where  the  open  country  began.  We  posted 
a  letter  in  the  mail-box  at  the  bridge,  ordering  a 
carriage  to  be  waiting  there  at  five  o  'clock  the  second 
morning,  and  then  were  towed  and  poled  at  a  com- 
fortable gait  southward  through  the  long,  lazy  after- 
noon, curtained  from  the  western  sun,  with  a  fresh 
little  breeze  from  the  sea  pleasantly  stirring  the  air. 
It  was  a  fiat,  level  country,  lying  close  to  the 
Coromandel  coast.  Once  the  canal  debouched  into 
a  great  lagoon,  and  the  trackers  plashed  like  a  file 
of  storks  across  a  few  miles  of  shallow  water,  and 
often  we  heard  the  long  boom  of  the  breakers.  Vil- 
lages nestled  under  palm  and  banian  groves;  vil- 
lagers trod  the  high  embankment  paths  like  so  many 
white  storks  or  red  flamingos ;  and  market,  cargo, 
and  fire-wood  boats  slipped  silently  by.  We  walked 
past  a  series  of  locks  in  the  late  afternoon,  and  when 
the  great  triangular  sail  dropped  we  took  our  chairs 
to  the  roof  and  glided  down  such  a  sunset  stretch  as 
met  one's  ideal  of  the  tropics.  Two  Tamil  coolies, tan- 
dem, towed  us ;  a  tall  boatman  poled ;  and  Daniel 's 
brilliant  red  turban  at  the  fore  gave  the  high  key- 
note to  the  sunset  color  scheme,  while  his  voice  rose 


MADRAS  AND  THE  SEVEN  PAGODAS  71 

in  sonorous  passages  descriptive  of  his  country  and 
his  people.  Even  the  untutored  blacks  of  the  crew 
crept  close  to  hear  the  foreign  language  roll  from 
his  tongue  in  such  unctuous  streams.  He  told  of  the 
temple  jewels  we  had  not  seen ;  of  the  stores  of  the 
finest  old  Indian  jewels  which  the  Nautch  girls  every- 
where own,  since  the  women  of  the  great  families 
are  continually  robbed  by  degenerate  sons,  who  have 
learned  only  more  forms  of  vice  and  extravagance 
with  Western  education.  Then  of  the  Brahmans  and 
their  *'  hereditary  heirness  "  he  said  with  a  sneer: 
' '  Those  Brahman  priests  say  they  are  the  gods  visible 
in  the  world.  Once  they  may  have  taught  truths, 
but  now  they  only  humbug  the  poor  people."  Bud- 
dhism as  it  flourishes  in  Ceylon?  "More  humbug," 
he  averred. 

The  palm-trees  grew  darker  than  violet  against 
the  rosy  west,  until  they  were  black  skeletons  against 
a  steely  blue,  star-spangled  firmament,  where  Jupiter 
shone  like  a  small  moon  and  Orion 's  three  great  belt- 
jewels  streamed  golden  tracks  across  the  lagoon.  We 
could  hear  the  boom  of  the  Coromandel  surf;  dark 
palm  groves  stopped  the  gentle  sea  breeze;  the  sail, 
spread  to  catch  any  breath,  dragged  and  flapped 
against  the  mast,  then  filled  with  the  soft  sea  air 
when  the  star-dotted  horizon  was  visible  again,  and 
drew  canal-boat  No.  1350  along  through  the  en- 
chanted night. 

In  the  middle  of  the  darkness  came  the  clatter  of 
the  falling  sail  and  an  angry  colloquy  by  the  bank- 
side,  David  and  Daniel  together  venting  their  strong- 
est language  at  invisible  retorters. 


72  WINTER  INDIA 

"It  is  the  twenty-mile  lock,"  said  David,  shaking 
with  wrath.  "The  manager  has  gone  to  bed  and 
will  not  open  the  lock  again  until  morning,  and  we 
shall  not  get  to  Seven  Pagodas  before  ten  o'clock. 
They  will  always  do  it  for  the  gentries,  but  they  do 
not  believe  when  poor  native  says  he  has  gentries 
waiting  in  a  boat."  With  one  lantern  and  an  escort 
of  innumerable  shadows  in  ghostly  clothes,  we  went 
and  pounded  on  the  lock-keeper 's  door,  and  besought 
him  as  the  most  courteous  of  a  whole  race  of  kindly 
disposed  people  to  consider  a  tourist's  precious  time 
and  consuming  zeal  for  rock-sculpture,  and  open  his 
locks  and  let  us  wing  and  track  our  way  to  Mahabali- 
pur,  "Certingly,  certingly.  Right  away,  mem- 
sahib,"  and  the  lock-keeper  came  out  with  his  keys, 
our  crew  worked  the  gates  and  levers,  and  while  we 
walked  and  talked  with  our  benefactor  of  the  tropic 
night,  the  waters  swirled  in  and  lifted  the  boat  to 
the  next  level. 

They  drove  a  stake  in  the  soft  sand  and  made  fast 
at  three  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  gray-blue  dawn 
we  woke  to  find  ourselves  and  three  budgery-boats 
lying  at  the  edge  of  a  great  sandy  flat,  beyond  which 
a  white  house  and  some  palm-trees  promised  govern- 
ment cheer.  We  went  over  to  the  dak  bangla  and 
demanded  baths,  breakfasts,  and  chair-bearers  at 
once.  The  first  two  demands  were  complied  with; 
but  at  six  o'clock  it  was  "  wait  a  little,"  as  it  had 
been  at  five-thirty,  and,  realizing  that  the  sooner  we 
began  the  five-mile  walk  in  the  sun  and  sand  the 
better  were  our  chances  of  surviving  and  accomplish- 
ing it  all  before  noon,  we  set  forth  in  the  cool  of  the 


MADRAS  AND  THE  SEVEN   PAGODAS  73 

December  morning.  Slowly,  quite  slowly,  we  strolled 
out  past  great  lily-ponds,  through  sandy  commons 
and  underbrush,  for  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  sculp- 
tured raths  of  Mahabalipur,  the  boulder-temples  of 
the  once  great  city  of  Bali. 

When  the  pious  ones  of  that  place,  whether  in  the 
sixth  century  or  still  earlier,  wished  to  build  a  temple 
they  took  a  boulder  of  the  desired  size,  carved  it  out- 
wardly until  it  looked  as  if  built  by  masons'  hands, 
block  by  block  and  course  by  course,  and  then  hol- 
lowed the  interior  into  chambers,  even  one  and  two 
stories  of  pillared  and  vaulted  chambers.  Five  such 
monolithic  raths,  or  temples,  remain  in  this  lonely 
strand,  with  guardian  lions,  elephants,  and  bulls 
hewn  from  lesser  boulders  before  them.  Two  of  the 
raths  are  mere  sentry-box  shrines,  or  image-cells, 
eleven  feet  square  and  twenty  feet  high,  carved  with 
a  wealth  of  exterior  and  interior  ornament.  The 
largest  rath  is  the  Split  Temple,  forty-two  feet  in 
length,  with  an  impressive  interior  hall.  All  the 
raths  stand  empty  and  deserted,  as  if  touched  by 
the  enchanter's  wand,  miraculously  turned  to  stone. 
There  was  no  moving  thing,  no  sound  but  the  distant 
moan  of  the  surf  and  the  rustling  clash  of  palm- 
branches.  The  seven-o'clock  sun  already  burned  the 
sands  and  was  reflected  scorchingly  from  the  rock 
masses,  whose  burned,  yellow-brown  tones  seemed  the 
very  expression  of  heat. 

Very  slowly  we  walked  for  a  mile  through  a 
plantation  of  young  fir-trees,  proof  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  India  considers  the  welfare  of  this  re- 
gion, whose  long-denuded  sands  are  being  reforested 


74  WINTER  INDIA 

for  both  economic  and  climatic  reasons.  We  came 
out  on  the  hard  sand  beach  where  the  ocean  lapped 
in  soft,  creamy  wavelets,  and  the  terrible  Coromandel 
surges  we  had  heard  and  read  of  only  splashed 
gently  on  the  steps  of  a  quaint  little  pyramidal  tem- 
ple carved,  course  upon  course,  to  its  final  bell-cap. 
Posts  and  columns  stand  far  out  in  the  water,  and  a 
line  of  breakers,  a  mile  still  further  out,  mark  where 
legend  says  other  pagodas  stand  intact  beneath  the 
waves.  Southey  has  imaged  it  in  "The  Curse  of 
Kehama,"  but  prosaic  surveyors  say  that  there  is 
only  a  reef  of  needle-rocks  below  the  surface.  That 
lonely  little  temple  at  the  edge  of  the  loud-sounding 
sea,  although  a  common  thing  of  masons'  construc- 
tion, is  most  impressive  of  all  the  seven  temples.  Its 
stone  facade  is  rounded  with  sand-blast,  spray,  and 
surge,  its  walls  are  broken,  its  portico  and  platform 
half  wrecked  by  the  fury  of  past  storms,  and  its 
cool,  wet  chambers  hold  Vishnu's  images  in  his  dif- 
ferent incarnations, — Buddha,  Vishnu's  ninth  ava- 
tar, occupying  a  last  cool  grotto. 

The  sun  was  burning  with  full  strength  then,  and 
we  sought  the  mud  and  thatch  Tamil  village  un- 
der a  cluster  of  palm-trees.  The  villagers  swarmed 
out,  and  an  inlcy,  sooty  flock  of  cherubs  ran  beside 
us  to  another  boulder-temple,  where  we  sat  in  the 
shade  and  regarded  a  huge  stone  hollowed  like  a 
churn  or  bowl,  where  "the  gopis  made  butter  for 
Krishna  in  the  forest" — "But  the  cat  ran  away  with 
the  butter,"  said  Daniel,  regretfully.  Krishna,  the 
dancing  god  of  Hindu  mythology,  very  nearly  cor- 
responds to  the  Greek  Apollo  or  Hercules,  and  the 
gopis  parallel  the  naiads  and  muses. 


MADRAS  AND   THE   SEVEN  PAGODAS  75 

The  palm-tree  was  our  Christmas-tree  that  day, 
and  the  villagers,  having  already  stripped  it  of  gifts, 
pierced  the  green  coeoanuts  and  gave  us  reviving 
dMnks.  The  Tamil  cup  ids  folded  palm-leaves  into 
drinking-cups  and  drank  such  portions  as  their  el- 
ders gave  them.  It  was  a  pretty,  primitive  scene, 
purely  and  ideally  Indian,  when  around  the  rock 
came  a  British  tourist  in  a  pith  helmet,  a  lady 
in  a  helmet,  too,  with  streaming  green  veil  ends. 
They  looked  at  the  churn,  they  looked  at  the  temple 
on  which  we  sat,  but  they  saw  us  no  more  than  they 
would  see  canal-boat  No.  1350  at  anchor  beside  their 
splendid  budgery-boat.  We  opened  more  coeoanuts 
and  drank  to  the  merry  day,  to  the  Superior  Person, 
to  the  Pharisee  wherever  he  may  find  himself. 
"  Peace  on  earth— good  will  to  men."  Blessed  is 
the  Christmas  spirit  and  the  Briton's  sense  of  de- 
corum. Alas,  that  we  had  no  letters  of  introduction 
with  us ! 

Slowly  we  walked  up  over  a  great  scarped  rock— 
and  it  was  like  walking  across  a  hot  stove — and 
descended  steps  in  its  front  to  see  the  carving  known 
as  Arjuna's  Penance— a  rock- front,  thirty-seven  feet 
high  and  ninety  feet  long,  carved  all  over  with  life- 
sized  figures  and  animals  in  high  relief,  a  whole 
picture-book  of  earliest  mythology.  The  wicked  cat 
who  stole  the  gopi's  lump  of  butter  was  triumph- 
antly pointed  out,  standing  on  its  hind  legs  in  pen- 
ance, while  mice  ran  about  its  feet.  "  Really,"  said 
Daniel,  "  he  is  waiting  for  the  sea  to  dry  that  he 
may  eat  all  the  fish  in  it."  This  gigantic  bas-relief 
sculpture,  beside  whioli  Thorvaldsen's  lion  at  Lu- 


76  WINTER  INDIA 

cerne  is  a  toy,  is  from  an  earlier  time  than  the  mono- 
lithic raths  by  the  sea,  and  marks  the  dateless  era  of 
serpent-worship.  But  the  sunny  rock-front  radiated 
heat  like  a  bonfire,  and  there  was  no  wish  to  stand 
and  study  it. 

It  was  then  past  nine  o'clock,  the  sun  was  scorch- 
ing high  overhead,  and  nothing  Daniel  could  say 
about  the  " numberl esses  of  gods  and  goddesses," 
or  lesser  cave-temples,  could  stir  us.  Not  "Krishna 
and  the  gopis,  his  sweethearts  in  paradise,"  not 
Ganesha,  all  black,  greasy,  and  garlanded  in  his  own 
rock-cut  temple,  could  attract  us  longer— all  interest 
in  art,  archaeology'-,  and  architecture  scorched  and 
scotched  for  the  day.  For  a  half-mile  we  had  made 
Daniel  give  guarantees  of  importance  before  we 
would  look  within  a  cave  or  take  one  extra  step  in 
that  terrible  scorch  and  sun-glare  of  a  midwinter 
morning. 

The  sands  were  blinding  and  our  boats  quivered 
in  heat-waves  as  we  went  toward  them  at  noon ;  but 
while  the  coolies  splashed  along  over  tow-paths  sub- 
merged by  the  tide,  we  were  cooled  by  a  gentle  head- 
wind all  the  afternoon.  The  water  was  a-splash  with 
bits  of  silver,  and  one  of  the  trackers  stopped, 
wrestled  with  something  under  his  foot,  and  threw 
a  large  fish  into  the  boat.  At  sunset  we  could  see  a 
faint  line  of  surf  beyond  the  sand  wastes,  and  the 
beat  of  the  sea  was  heard  through  hours  of  darkness 
succeeding  the  most  beautiful,  moist  pink  sunset. 

When  the  candles  were  lighted  a  great,  two-inch 
brown  cockroach  ran  up  the  side  of  the  boat,  stood  up- 
side down  on  the  mat  ceiling,  and  waved  his  feelers. 


MADRAS  AND  THE  SEVEN   PAGODAS  79 

Others  followed  the  beckoning  leader  until  the  place 
was  swarming,  and  we  retreated  to  the  chairs  at 
the  stern,  where,  with  breakneck  naps,  we  spent  the 
night,  shuddering  to  think  of  the  preceding  night, 
when,  preferring  starlight  to  candles,  we  had  gone 
to  bed  in  the  dark. 

The  sky  was  full  of  big,  yellow,  pulsing  stars,  but 
the  Southern  Cross  was  not  visible.  Orion  gradu- 
ally changed  its  angle  and  tilted  itself  almost  in  re- 
verse; and  Orion  was  a  great  offense  to  me  in  those 
low  latitudes.  As  if  one  went  to  latitude  0°  and  to 
6°  N.  and  13°  N.  to  see  one's  most  familiar  northern 
constellation ! 

"Mehlady!  Meh  lady !  The  Holy  Cross  is  here 
in  the  sky  now,"  said  faithful  David  at  four  o'clock, 
and  he  crossed  himself  as  became  a  good  Romanist, 
There,  straightaway  in  our  wake  to  southward,  were 
two  lopsided  crosses,  or  diamonds,  each  outlined  by 
four  great,  glowing  yellow  stars  where  the  narrow 
cut  of  the  Buckingham  Canal  exactly  underlay  and 
reflected  the  great  southern  constellation,  the  filmy 
trails  of  Magellan's  clouds  floating  near. 


CHAPTER   VI 

MADRAS   AND    CALCUTTA 

IHERE  is  a  splendid  show  of  old  armor 
and  weapons  in  the  Madras  Museum, 
but  those  trophies  of  metal-work  are 
not  unique  like  the  relies  and  frag- 
ments from  the  great  Buddhist  shrines 
of  the  south.  Room  after  room  is  filled  with  bas- 
reliefs  and  images  dating  from  the  noblest  period 
of  Greco-Buddhist  art,  the  great  tope  of  Amraoti 
having  been,  like  the  temple  of  Boro  Boedor  in  Java, 
a  picture-Bible  of  Buddhism.  The  exquisite  marble 
bas-reliefs,  portraying  events  in  the  life  of  Buddha 
and  scenes  of  religious  ceremony,  and  the  bands  of 
ornament  give  but  a  starting-point  for  the  imagina- 
tion to  reconstruct  the  shrines  of  twelve  and  fifteen 
centuries  ago.  There  are  treasured  relics  dating  cen- 
turies before  the  Christian  era,  and  one  bit  of  bone 
in  a  berjd  cylinder,  found  in  the  excavations  at  the 
Bhattiprolu  mound,  is  an  undoubted  fragment  of 
the  body  of  Gautama  Buddha.  Our  guides  were  not 
eloquent  over  these  Buddhist  relics,  knowing  more 
about  the  jeweled  and  damascened  swords,  goads, 
spears,  and  daggers  of  the  late  Raja  of  Tanjore, 
whose  treasures  had  lately  come  to  the  "wonder- 

80 


MADRAS  AND  CALCUTTA  81 

house,"  as  the  natives  term  a  museum.  A  wonder- 
guide  had  attached  himself  to  us  as  we  made  tlie 
rounds,  greatly  to  the  annoyance  of  Samuel  Daniel, 
whose  severest  manner  could  not  rout  him.  At  the 
door  eacli  handed  us  an  umbrella,  and  as  we  went 
down  the  steps  Daniel  thrust  away  the  self-appointed 
guide  and  began:  "Your  ladyships";  but  the  rival 
slipped  past,  opened  the  carriage  door,  and,  bowing, 
said:  "Your  highnesses."  The  constant  "lady- 
ships ' '  that  we  everywhere  received  declared  how  the 
wily  Hindu  sees  and  plays  upon  the  weaknesses  of 
the  alien  race  he  knows  best,  and  the  "highnesses" 
was  climax  of  the  play  upon  snobbery. 

One  never  could  have  greater  need  for  an  astral 
body  than  in  Madras,  where  we  drove  and  drove  to 
get  to  any  place — through  miles  of  banian  tunnels 
and  green-vaulted  avenues,  along  the  Marina  road 
by  the  sea,  and  through  the  Adyar  suburb,  where 
Theosophists  still  congregate,  despite  the  cruel  ex- 
posure of  the  whole  Blavatsky-Mahatma-Yogi  frauds 
in  that  very  quarter  years  ago. 

Life  is  lived  on  narrow  margins  in  India.  One 
cannot  get  "something  for  nothing"  in  Madras;  and 
every  purchase  sent  to  the  hotel  came  with  a  foot- 
note to  the  bill:  "Coolie  not  paid."  When  Samuel 
Daniel  had  left  for  his  home,  the  next  post  brought 
us  a  card:  "Your  ladyships:  I  forgetfully  leave 
my  carpet  and  blanket  with  David's  bed  at  Guindy 
Bridge.  Please  David  have  send  to,  as  railway  par- 
cel, to  station-master  at  Trichinopoli."  We  ordered 
the  room  butler  to  send  a  responsible  person  to  the 
station  and— but  before  I  could  finish  mv  remarks 


62  WINTER  INDIA 

and  tell  how  to  prepay  the  parcel,  his  grins  changed 
and  he  began  to  storm  angrily:  "Who  pays  that 
coolie?  "Who  pays  that  railway?  I  am  poor  man. 
Suppose  I  never  see  Daniel  again?  Suppose  I  die, 
and  Daniel  does  n't  come?  What  becomes  of  my 
family  then?  You  pay  the  coolie.  You  pay  the 
coolie.  God  will  bless  you.  God  will  bless  the  good 
lady  who  helps  the  poor.  Think  of  my  family !  Oh, 
think  of  my  family !  You  pay  the  coolie  !  You  pay 
the  coolie !  God  will  bless  you  !"  he  implored,  work- 
ing himself  into  a  very  frenzy.  There  was  a  rush 
and  rustle  of  starched  clothing  and  the  frenzy  sud- 
denly ended  as  David  cuffed  him  out  of  the  room 
with  word  that  the  memsahib  had  expected  to  pay  the 
coolie  anyhow. 

The  butler  presented  a  bill  that  was  many  rupees 
too  much.  "I  must  see  the  manager  about  this,"  I 
said,  rising  to  leave  the  room.  ' '  Oh,  your  ladyship  ! 
Your  ladyship  !  Write  a  chit !  Write  only  a  little 
chit— a  little  chit  to  the  manager,  and  he  will  under- 
stand and  make  it  right,"  implored  the  end-man. 
"But  I  must  see  him,"  I  said.  A  torrent  of  agitated 
pleas  poured  from  the  minstrel.  "The  manager  is 
away.     He  is  at  the  fort." 

"Then  I  will  wait  and  speak  to  him  when  he 
returns. ' ' 

"But,  your  ladyship,  suppose  your  ship  comes! 
Oh,  your  ladyship,  write  just  a  little  chit,"  and  the 
butler  wrung  his  hands  in  real  despair. 

That  act  of  the  farce  having  lasted  long  enough, 
I  Avrote  "too  much"  on  the  back  of  the  bill.  The 
butler  carried  it  out  on  the  silver  salver,  wont  to  a 


MADRAS  AND  CALCUTTA  83 

table  at  the  end  of  the  hall,  and  wrote  something  on 
the  face  of  the  bill.  Pooh  Bah  had  literally  gone  over 
to  the  other  side  of  the  stage  and  become  manager 
himself.  He  returned  in  less  than  three  minutes 
with  the  corrected  bill,  with  apologies  from  the  man- 
ager three  miles  away  at  the  fort,  and  with  his 
autograph  ^'Thanks"  written  at  the  end.  Then  the 
combination  butler-manager-bookkeeper  took  the 
money,  went  back  to  the  hall  table,  and  receipted 
the  bill,  which  was  all  in  the  one  handwriting. 

All  the  doors  of  my  room,  the  windows,  the  hall, 
staircase,  and  portico  were  full  of  salaaming  ser- 
vants when  leave-taking  came.  The  neighborhood 
must  have  been  emptied  for  our  farewell,  as  well  as 
the  village  of  servants  in  the  back  yard.  From  the 
triple-part  chief  to  the  humblest  coolie,  gardener, 
water-carrier,  sweeper,  and  the  despised  woman 
slavey,  all  stood  expectant,  rubbing  their  noses 
upward  wnth  their  palms  and  extending  their  hands 
as  they  wailed  :  ' '  Prissint !  Prissint !  Oh,  memsahib, 
prissint !" 

"Will  you  kindly  telephone  to  the  hotel  when  the 
ship  is  sighted  Sunday  morning.  There  are  eight 
passengers  there,"  I  had  said  to  the  clerk  on  Satur- 
day. "Oh,  madam,"  said  the  pink  Englishman  in 
a  shocked  tone,  "the  telephone  cannot  be  used  on 
Sundays.     The  telephone  office  is  closed." 

At  sunrise  and  at  sunset  we  drove  to  the  empty 
harbor,  and  a  black  babu  at  the  door  of  the  steam- 
ship office  said:  "The  Khedive,  she  will  not  come 
until  morning  now.  She  cannot  get  in  the  entrance 
of  tlu'  bri'akwater  without  daylight." 


84  WLNTEE  INDIA 

"When  will  the  launch  go  off  to  the  ship?" 
"Oh,  we  don't  get  the  passengers  out.    You  just 
put  yourself  in  a  massoula-boat  when  you  see  the 
ship  and  go  out  to  it  yourself." 

We  engaged  a  massoula-boat  from  him  with  the 
agreement  that  one  of  the  crew  should  rouse  the 
hotel  when  the  Khedive  was  sighted.  And  he  did, 
with  such  fervor  and  fury  that  we  all  drove  at  a 
Gilpin-speed  for  the  harbor  lest  we  miss  the  ship. 
Black  boatmen  ran  the  last  mile  beside  us,  screeching 
their  numbers,  holding  out  their  tin  license-tags,  and 
dodging  the  blows  of  our  own  courier  boatman,  who 
resented  any  approaches  toward  his  legal  fares.  We 
and  our  trunks  and  traps  were  but  atoms  in  the 
bottom  of  the  cavernous  massoula-boat  that  the  black 
babu  had  engaged  for  us — a  primitive  native  boat 
whose  timbers,  fitted  and  tied  together,  only  can 
withstand  the  famous  INIadras  surf.  Six  black  man- 
apes  plied  arrow-headed  poles  that  passed  for  oars, 
and  with  a  wild,  resounding  chant  shot  away  from 
the  iron  pier.  We  clung  to  the  high  gunwales  as 
we  stood  on  the  loose  lattice  of  poles  and  mats  and 
wondered  when  the  first  great  roller  w^ould  lift  us. 
But  Ave  rowed  only  a  few  hundred  yards  to  a  ship 
within  the  still  pool  of  the  artificial  harbor,  sheltered 
by  a  breakwater  whose  opposing  arms,  bearing  twin 
lighthouses,  were  far  enough  apart  for  fleets  to  have 
manoeuvered  there  after  dark.  Madras  people  went 
past  us  in  dingies  and  dories  and  any  sort  of  row- 
boats,  and  we  in  our  arks  of  massoula-boats  were  as 
ridiculous  as  tourists  generally  are  in  strange  lands. 
Enough  tourists  had  been  duped  into  engaging  these 


MADRAS  AND  CALCUTTA  85 

huge  surf-boats  to  make  a  very  imposing  appearance 
when  the  fleet  approached  the  gangway  in  line. 
There  was  a  smooth,  smiling  sunlit  sea  flickering 
beyond  the  breakwater  that  serene  December  day, 
and  the  fabled  surf  of  the  Coromandel  coast  and  the 
**life-in-your-hand"  embarkations  at  Madras  were 
other  outlived  illusions. 

There  had  been  a  bedlam  of  coolies  at  the  pier,  but 
there  was  ten  times  more  bedlam  at  the  one  gangway 
of  the  Khedive;  one  stream  of  passengers,  servants, 
and  baggage-coolies  ascending  the  narrow^  swaying 
gangway,  and  another  stream  trying  to  descend, 
every  lung  and  muscle  in  the  lot  working  overtime. 
We  hesitated  long,  but  David,  scenting  a  fray,  was 
as  intractable  as  a  war-horse,  and,  leaping  ahead, 
screamed,  pushed,  kicked,  and  slapped  a  way  for  us 
through  the  struggling  bearers,  the  toppling  trunks 
and  bags.  The  others  did  the  same,  and  one  would 
rather  have  jumped  over  than  have  attempted  to 
return.  As  one  woman  was  jerked  up  by  both  arms 
from  the  rocking  massoula-boat,  a  lurch  sent  her 
against  the  gangway  chains  and  knocked  her  cha- 
telaine-bag ofl'  and  into  the  water.  AVitli  it  went 
watch,  purse,  keys,  tickets,  and  hotter  of  credit.  And 
the  ship  was  to  sail  in  an  hour!  The  purser  sent  a 
boatman  in  haste,  a  lighter  came  alongside,  and  the 
diver  was  dressed,  his  headpiece  screwed  on  before 
our  eyes,  and  his  leaden  knapsack  arranged  as  his 
weighted  feet  were  lowered  from  rung  to  rung  of  the 
ladder  until  beneath  the  water.  A  line  of  bubbles 
showed  where  he  walked  about  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea,  and  in  five  minutes  he  came  up  with  the  bag  on 


86  WINTER  INDIA 

his  wrist,  the  whole  proceeding  as  orderly  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact as  if  it  were  the  usual  thing  to  drop  and 
recover  articles  in  Madras  harbor. 

The  completed  railway  now  gives  one  choice  of  a 
land  route  to  Calcutta  in  half  the  time  a  ship  re- 
quires ;  but  with  the  dust,  heat,  and  discomfort  con- 
sidered, it  is  not  always  preferred. 

"The  Khedive,  she"  made  the  seven  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  from  Madras  to  Calcutta  in  four  days 
and  a  half,  counting  in  the  whole  night  that  we 
anchored  among  a  brilliant  constellation  of  ships' 
lights  at  the  Hugli  mouth  of  the  Ganges.  When  the 
ship  started  up  the  sacred,  muddy  stream  of  such 
ill  omen,  with  a  famous  Hugli  pilot  in  an  enormous 
mushroom  solar  hat  shading  him  like  an  umbrella, 
ports  were  closed,  ropes  laid  out,  and  every  officer, 
lascar,  and  stoker  was  at  his  post.  The  ship  sailed 
smoothly  over  the  shoals  and  quicksands  of  such  dire 
record  and  nothing  happened. 

We  hastened  to  the  Great  Eastern  Hotel,  to  which 
we  had  written  in  November,  again  in  December,  and 
twice  telegraphed  of  our  coming  from  Madras. 

"We  never  reserve  rooms  unless  money  is  inclosed 
with  the  order,"  said  the  haughty  brown  clerk. 
"This  hotel  is  full." 

"Have  you  any  mail  for  us?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Many  letters.  They  have  Been  coming 
for  some  time.  The  bank  messenger  brought  many 
to-day.  You  will  find  them  in  that  desk  over  there, ' ' 
pointing  to  a  box  where  every  one  rummaged  and 
chose  at  will. 

We  drove  in  the  fast-falling  dusk  to  five  hotels 


MADRAS  AND  CALCUTTA  87 

and  four  boarding-houses.  Not  a  room  nor  a  tent' 
could  be  had,  and  we  were  deciding  whether  to  lay 
ourselves  on  an  orphan  asylum's  door-step,  seek  the 
consul  as  really  distressed  Americans,  or  go  back  to 
the  ship  and  insist  upon  their  keeping  us  until  morn- 
ing, when  the  peon  of  one  of  the  hotels  screamed 
and  ran  after  us  as  we  drove  past.  We  hurried  in 
and  sat  on  the  upper  backstairs  until  we  could  make 
an  instantaneous  exchange  of  luggage  with  an  officer 
called  back  to  his  hill  station.  The  small  back  room 
had  such  shabby  furnishings  as  would  cause  an 
American  cook  to  give  notice,  and  we  commanded  a 
view  of  tin  roofs,  chimney-pots,  and  clothes-lines.  A 
half-clad,  hairy  man  came  in  with  a  bloated  goatskin 
of  water  over  his  shoulder.  He  pulled  the  goatskin 
neck  around  and  filled  the  bath-tub  from  the  leather 
reservoir— this  primitive  method  surviving  in  the 
"city  of  palaces"  after  a  century  of  British  rule 
and  long  official  example  of  luxury  and  splendor. 

In  the  dining-room  each  guest  had  his  own  servant 
standing  behind  his  chair.  One  hundred  guests  sat 
at  meat,  and  more  than  that  many  turbaned  bearers 
stepped  silently  over  the  marble  floor.  Each  re- 
tainer looked  grim  determination,  and  had  a  row 
of  knives,  forks,  and  spoons  thrust  dagger-wise  in 
his  belt.  Then  we  discovered  that  the  table  d'hote 
was  the  battle-ground  of  the  bearers,  that  food  and 
forks  Avere  for  the  forehanded,  for  the  swiftest  and 
strongest  only.  Our  Tamil  was  quivering  for  the 
fray  and  soon  in  the  midst  of  it,  wresting  soup  and 
fish,  entree,  roast,  and  game,  trophy  by  trophy,  and 
emerging    from    each    hand-to-haud    struggle    with 


88  WINTER  INDIA 

turban  awry  and  eyes  flashing.  Although  this  foot- 
ball rush  was  going  on  in  the  pantry  and  dining- 
room,  the  swiftly  moving,  barefooted  contestants 
made  no  sound  on  the  marble  floor,  and  only  a  sup- 
pressed hissing  indicated  the  death-scuffle  behind  the 
screen.  Each  bearer  put  down  the  hard-won  plate 
before  his  master,  pulled  a  fresh  knife  and  fork 
from  his  belt,  gave  them  a  rub  on  his  voluminous 
garments,  and  fell  into  statuesque  pose  again  iDehind 
the  chair. 


CHAPTER    VII 

CALCUTTA   IN    CHRISTMAS   WEEK 

[NOTHER  winter  I  took  heed  and 
reached  Calcutta  betimes,  making  sure 
of  hotel  accommodations  for  Christmas 
week,  the  gala  season  of  the  Anglo- 
Indian  year,  when  all  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred civilians  who  rule  India,  and  all  the  officers  who 
can  be  spared  from  cantonments,  seek  the  capital. 

Going  from  and  returning  to  Singapore  there  was 
opportunity  to  stop  in  Burma,  politically  a  province 
of  India,  but  a  country  quite  unique,  where  the  life 
and  the  people  are  so  distinct  from  those  of  India 
that  one  cannot  class  it  with  Hindustan  any  more 
than  Siam.  A  different  religion  has  made  the  Bur- 
mese a  different  people,  and  the  absence  of  caste, 
the  freedom,  the  equality,  in  fact,  the  acknowledged 
superiority  of  the  attractive,  capable,  Burmese  wo- 
men have  evolved  a  wholly  different  social  order. 
There  is  light,  and  laughter  and  gaiety  among  its 
people,  and  the  Burman  is  Malay  enough  to  enjoy  a 
life  of  leisure.  The  Chinese  come  and  do  the  trad- 
ing, and  the  Madrasi  come  to  do  the  work,  and  the 
Burmese  woman  keeps  the  shop,  rules  the  family, 

so 


90  WINTER   INDIA 

smokes  her  ''whacldng  white  cheroot"  with  grace, 
and  exerts  rare  charm. 

In  all  sight-seeing  nothing  is  such  surprise,  so  Ori- 
ental, so  dazzling  and  fascinating  as  the  great  Shoe- 
dagong  pagoda  at  Rangoon.  It  repays  one  for  all 
the  entomological  revels  of  the  "  B.  I."  boats  to  see 
that  colossal,  gilded,  and  jeweled  monument  sur- 
rounded by  picturesque  worshipers;  to  watch  "the 
elephants  a-pilin'  teak";  to  see  the  colossal  Sleeping 
Buddha  at  Pegu;  and  to  travel  past  one  hundred 
miles  of  sacked  rice  awaiting  the  overtaxed  railway 
transportation,  as  one  rumbles  by  rail  to  Manda- 
lay,  where  the  fantastic  gilt  and  mirror-covered 
temples,  monasteries,  and  palaces  equal  one's 
dreams  of  "the  gorgeous  East."  Only  seeing  can 
convince  one  w^hat  Buddhism  can  do  for  a  people 
in  contrast  with  Hinduism  or  Mohammedanism,  and 
that  the  pagoda  is  always  in  sight  in  Burma — the 
swelling,  white  bodies  tapering  to  needle  spires 
often  gilded  and  tipped  with  jewels — the  sites  of 
deserted  cities  like  Amarapura  and  Pagan  on  the 
lower  Irawadi  dotted  as  thickly  with  temples  and 
pagodas  as  ever  they  could  have  been  with  houses. 
Too  many  chapters  would  be  required  for  anything 
like  an  adequate  exploitation  of  this  picturesque 
country  and  attractive  people ;  but  until  the  great 
European  mail-steamers  touch  at  Rangoon  the  plea- 
sure traveler  is  warned  against  the  slow  coasting 
steamers  on  which  one  lives  with  the  heat  and  the 
smells  and  the  motion  at  the  very  stern,  and  where 
huge  brown  tropical  roaches  swarm,  past  any  figures 
of  speech  to  give  idea. 


CALCUTTA  IN  CHRISTMAS  WEEK  93 

There  were  brilliant  panoramas  on  Calcutta  streets, 
those  ^'littering  noondays  and  golden  afternoons, 
but  the  hotels  had  only  increased  in  numbers,  and 
advanced  in  price  in  the  few  years.  Hotels  in 
India  are  all  conducted  on  the  pension  or  American 
plan  of  a  fixed  rate  per  day,  with  everything  save 
wine  included,  and  the  charges  had  risen  from  the 
average  five  and  seven  rupees  to  ten  and  fifteen 
rupees,  to  the  indignation  of  Anglo-Indians,  who, 
in  no  gentle  terms,  blame  increasing  tourist  travel 
for  the  increased  cost  of  living. 

I  was  conducted  across  a  back  yard  and  up  a 
flight  of  outer  steps  to  a  room  whose  reed  matting 
had  not  been  disturbed  in  many  seasons.  "  But  the 
Bishop  of  New  York  occupied  that  room  last  year 
and  made  no  complaint, ' '  said  the  landlady,  dramat- 
ically. 

"  Think  how  much  more  Christian  fortitude  and 
saving  grace  a  bishop  has  to  have  " — and  she  coun- 
termanded the  order  for  a  new  matting  to  be  laid  on 
top  of  the  old  one  in  shiftless  Indian  fashion,  and 
decreed  a  cleaning  instead.  Two  inches  of  dust,  that 
had  to  be  shoveled  off,  underlay  the  matting,  then 
the  cement  floor  was  washed  with  disinfectants,  and 
there  was  one  clean  room  in  one  Calcutta  hotel  that 
night.  When  the  washstand,  grimed  with  the  wear 
of  many  seasons,  had  received  a  coat  of  white  paint, 
—without  a  bowl  or  article  being  removed,— it  was 
a  splendid  apartment— for  an  Indian  hotel.  I  al- 
most hesitated  to  exchange  it  for  "  one  of  the  best 
rooms  in  the  house"— a  lofty,  whitewashed  cell 
with  worn  cocoa  matting  on  the  floor,  where  twilight 


94  WINTER  INDIA 

reigned  all  day  and  no  pernicious  ray  of  sunlight 
fell.  "This  is  Room  66  in  the  Hotel  in  Cal- 
cutta, one  of  the  best  in  the  house,"  said  an  Ameri- 
can lecturer  once,  and  at  sight  of  the  lantern  picture 
the  audience  roared  with  laughter. 

"  Go  and  see  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,"  said 
the  Viceroy,  who  had  finally  determined  and  marked 
the  exact  spot.  "  I  have  no  need  to,  Your  Excel- 
lency.   I  live  there  now.  Room  18, Hotel, ' '  said 

another  winter  visitor. 

There  is  little  of  stock  sight-seeing  for  the  tourist 
—only  the  Zoological  and  Botanical  Gardens  and 
the  Temple  of  Kali;  there  are  no  specialties  or  local 
opportunities  in  souvenir  shopping  in  Calcutta,  and 
the  European  life  is  not  what  one  comes  half-way 
around  the  world  to  see;  so  that  the  traveler's  stay 
in  this  city  is  usually  brief.  The  fact  of  its  being 
the  capital  for  so  short  a  season  gives  Calcutta  much 
of  a  watering-place  atmosphere. 

Except  for  innumerable  turbaned  and  bare-footed 
servants,  the  pankha,  and  the  use  of  many  Hin- 
dustani words,  the  life  is  the  life  of  London— a 
London  with  the  chill  taken  off  and  the  sun  shining 
gloriously.  Every  one  waits  for  the  London 
Times  to  know  the  real  news  of  the  world;  and 
although  the  Calcutta  newspapers  hold  diverting 
advertisements  of  cinder-picking  and  ash-sifting 
rights  for  sale,  and  "20  Rhinoceroses  Wanted, 
Rupees  2000  each,"  local  opinion  waits  on  the  daily 
arrival  of  the  Allahahad  Pioneer,  a  nursery  of  ge- 
nius wherein  Sinnett  and  Kipling  and  Marion  Craw- 
ford first  won  public  applause. 


CALCUTTA  IN   CHRISTMAS   WEEK  95 

Even  in  December  there  is  suuimer  heat  at  noon, 
and  one  wears  the  white  gowns  of  the  tropics  at 
that  high  social  hour  in  Calcutta ;  for  one  writes 
his  name  in  the  visitors'  book  at  Government  House, 
all  formal  calls  are  made,  and  letters  of  introduction 
are  presented  between  twelve  and  two  o'clock;  and 
on  Sundays,  after  church,  every  drawing-room  hums 
with  visitors'  chat.  The  solid  two-o'clock  tiffin,  fol- 
lowing the  heavy  ten-o'clock  breakfast,  is  so  soon  suc- 
ceeded by  the  four-o'clock  tea  and  the  eight-o'clock 
dinner,  that  it  is  a  surprise  that  any  one  survives  the 
constant  feasting  which  fills  Anglo-Indian  life.  Lit- 
tle can  be  urged  against  a  climate  that  permits  such 
Gargantuan  feats.  The  London  menu  goes  with  the 
British  drum-beat  round  the  world,  and  the  beef  and 
beer  and  cheese,  the  boiled  potato,  the  cauliflower, 
and  orange  marmalade  are  fixed  and  omnipresent. 
More  continuous  than  the  imperial  drum-beat  is  the 
sound  of  the  soda-water  bottle,  on  which,  with  the 
quinine  sulphate,  British  rule  rests.  A  chill  and 
piercing  dampness  succeeds  sunset,  and  often  at 
night  dense  fogs  shroud  lamp-posts  and  landmarks 
until  street  travel  is  at  a  standstill.  The  modem 
Calcutta  houses  have  fireplaces  where  a  few  lumps 
of  coal  diffuse  a  cheerful  dryness,  but  in  the  older 
mansions  one  is  bidden  quite  seriously  to  sit  nearer 
the  lamp  and  enjoy  its  benign  radiation. 

The  Viceroy  comes  do^\^l  from  Simla  in  November, 
and  goes  on  a  provincial  tour,  reaching  Calcutta  be- 
fore Christmas,  when  tents  for  extra  guests  decorate 
the  lawns  of  Government  House,  of  the  clubs  and 
great  residences ;  and  the  empire  revolves  within  the 


96  WINTER   INDIA 

white  viceregal  palace.  The  standard  flies  above  the 
main  entrance,  red  lancers  of  the  body-guard  pose 
statuesque  before  the  portico,  and  at  times  a  red 
carpet  rolls  down  the  steps  and  the  Viceroy  goes  in 
state  to  return  princely  visits,  or  to  stand  on  a  pearl 
and  bullion  embroidered  carpet  before  his  silver 
arm-chair  and  lay  a  corner-stone,  unveil  a  statue, 
or  open  some  new  public  building.  The  great  event 
of  the  racing  week  is  the  Viceroy's  Cup,  when  all 
sporting  India  has  its  eye  on  the  Maidan,  remotest 
cantonments  as  heavily  interested  as  the  cheering 
crowds  on  the  oval.  The  Viceroy  comes  in  state,  and 
his  loge  and  lawn  are  the  center  of  interest  and  the 
social  heaven  of  the  ambitious,  who,  between  events, 
parade  in  the  hats  and  gowns  brought  out  from 
London  and  Paris  for  the  races.  Rajas  and  nabobs 
of  degree  make  a  brave  show  too,  with  their  jeweled 
turbans,  and  necklaces  worn  outside  frock  coats  of 
flowered  satins ;  the  tight-fitting  trousers  to  match 
as  often  trimmed  with  tinsel  braid  and  French 
passementerie.  Thousands  of  natives,  in  the  univer- 
sal white  garments  and  turbans  of  every  hue,  make 
such  patches  of  shifting  rainbow  color  in  the  field, 
such  a  living  tulip-bed,  as  fascinates  the  eye  more 
than  any  scramble  of  running  horses. 

Then  all  the  world  drives  in  the  Maidan,  making 
a  grand  defile  down  the  Red  Road  and  the  avenue 
of  statues,  along  the  Strand  and  the  Esplanade  by 
the  Eden  Gardens,  where  the  band  plays  at  sunset. 
Eastern  and  Western  fashions  are  strangely  con- 
trasted. The  bhisti,  with  swollen  goatskins  on  their 
backs,  sprinkle  the  dust,  as  in  the  times  of  Alexander 


CALCUTTA  IN  CHlilSTMAS   WEEK  97 

the  Great  and  Cyrus,  while  automobiles  fly  by,  elec- 
tric lights  prick  the  blue  mists  of  distance,  and  night 
falls  with  tropic  swiftness. 

The  Viceroy  and  his  wife  together  hold  a  draw- 
ing-room a  few  days  after  Christmas,  when  a  pro- 
cession of  women  winds  slowly  up  the  white  stair- 
case of  Government  House  lined  with  red-coated 
red-turbaned  servants,  and  past  the  many  barriers 
to  the  throne-room,  where  the  knee  is  bent  to  vice- 
royalty,  and  one  train  and  bouquet  give  way  to  the 
long  procession  of  trains  and  bouquets.  One  does 
not  soon  forget  the  scenes  of  Lord  Curzon's  rule 
in  India.  The  Viceroy,  in  his  white  satin  small- 
clothes, girt  with  his  orders  and  stars  and  the  in- 
signia of  the  Garter,  and  Lady  Curzon,  that  su- 
premely beautiful  woman  of  her  day,  on  the  dais 
beside  him  in  glittering  tiara  and  ropes  of  pearls, 
her  long  train  rippling  away  over  the  edge  of  the 
steps,  remind  one  of  certain  of  David's  historical 
pictures.  Lady  Curzon  has  held  all  native  and  Anglo- 
India  under  the  spell  of  her  charm  during  her  stay. 
There  could  be  no  rivalry  in  beauty,  and  her  unfail- 
ing tact  and  sweet  gentleness  carry  all  before  her. 
The  Indian  people  exhausted  the  imagery  of  their 
several  hundred  languages  to  describe  her  beauty, 
the  sun,  moon,  stars,  jewels,  and  all  the  goddesses 
and  gopis  of  their  pantheon  being  drawn  into  com- 
parison to  describe  the  lovely  "Lady  Sahib." 

A  still  larger  company  of  men  are  presented  to 
the  Viceroy,  receiving  alone,  at  the  levee,  and  then 
the  state  balls  and  state  dinners,  small  dinners  and 
dances  rapidly  succeed  one  another,  while  the  Vice- 


98  WINTEE  INDIA 

roy's  private  hospitalities  are  continuous.  At  the 
end  of  each  week  the  viceregal  family  go  to  their 
country  house  at  Barrackpur,  fourteen  miles  up 
the  Hugli,  the  large  house-party  reinforced  by  a 
company  of  guests  brought  up  on  the  yacht  to 
lunch  under  the  great  banian-tree.  Like  Lord 
Auckland,  Lord  Curzon,  with  the  Dowager  Empress 
of  China,  rules  half  the  human  race  and  still  finds 
time  to  breakfast  under  that  banian-tree.  Pos- 
sessed of  that  same  tireless  energy  as  those  two  other 
strenuous  rulers  of  his  day,  President  Roosevelt  and 
the  Emperor  William,  Lord  Curzon  has  given  Anglo- 
India  daily  shock  and  sensation  since  his  arrival, 
and  sleepy  bureaus  and  slow  officials  were  galvan- 
ized to  a  life  that  has  known  no  resting  since.  There 
has  been  no  monotony  during  Lord  Curzon 's  time, 
and  those  who  have  waited  for  him  to  weary  of  hus- 
tling the  East,  to  sit  back  in  conventional  viceregal 
fashion  and  sign  the  papers  brought  him,  have  had 
to  resign  themselves  to  his  omnipresence  and  ter- 
rible activity,  his  thirst  for  information,  and  his 
frenzy  for  work.  He  has  impressed  his  vigorous  per- 
sonality upon  every  branch  of  the  imperial  service, 
and  already  has  visited  more  native  states  and  dis- 
tant provinces  than  any  predecessor;  ordering, 
with  equal  attention  to  minutiie,  the  least  details 
of  the  increased  state  and  ceremony  now  attending 
the  viceregal  court,  the  methods  of  famine  relief 
and  plague  control,  and  of  the  organization  of  the 
new  district  created  on  the  northwest  frontier.  He 
has  brought  India  to  the  world's  attention  and  given 
it  an  impetus  in  the  path  of  progress  and  prosperity. 


CALCUTTA  IN  CHRISTMAS  WEEK  99 

The  "  L.  G."  or  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal, 
ruler  of  sixty  millions  of  people,  carries  on  an  elabo- 
rate program  of  hospitalities  at  Belvidere,  his  beau- 
tiful villa  beyond  the  race-course,  and  the  com- 
mander-in-chief and  the  local  military  officers  at  the 
fort  do  their  part  to  crowd  the  January  weeks  with 
social  events  for  the  keenly  pleasure-loving  English 
in  exile.  It  is  only  at  investment  ceremonies  and  at 
durbars  on  the  arrival  of  a  new  viceroy  that  the 
native  princes  assemble  at  the  Calcutta  court  in 
great  numbers.  A  few  Parsi  women  in  graceful 
head  draperies  of  pale  silks,  and  loaded  with  jewels, 
attend  the  functions  at  Government  House,  and  a 
few  elderly  and  widowed  Hindu  ladies  of  rank  re- 
ceive visitors  of  their  own  sex ;  but  otherwise  the 
native  women  of  the  higher  classes  remain  in  as 
great  seclusion  as  ever,  veiled  even  when  they  drive 
in  closed  carriages.  On  one  afternoon  of  the  week, 
the  India  Museum  is  closed  to  men  visitors,  and  na- 
tive women  and  children  come  by  the  gharry-load 
to  the  ''wonder-house."  Foreign  women  can  en- 
ter the  museum  then,  mingle  with  their  purdah  sis- 
ters, and  watch  the  jeweled  persons  as  they  stroll 
about  as  curious  and  as  ignorant  as  the  smaller 
children. 

The  India  Museum  is  rich  beyond  rivalry  in 
treasures  of  ancient  art.  The  magnificent  carved 
gateway  and  rail  from  the  Buddhist  tope  at  Sanchi, 
original  of  the  casts  in  London  and  in  Paris, 
bas-reliefs  and  images  from  Gandhara  and  Amra- 
oti,  with  treasures  and  relics  from  the  great  tem- 
ple at  Buddlia-Gaya,  have  long  made  the  fame  of  the 


100  WINTER  INDIA 

museum.  When  the  Piprawah  mound  at  Padaria  on 
the  Nepal  frontier  was  excavated,  and  the  stone 
coffer  containing  the  relics  and  fragments  of  the 
body  of  Gautama  Buddha  were  found,  no  archoB- 
ologist  or  representative  of  the  government  was  pres- 
ent, and  the  "  L.  G."  of  the  Northwest  Provinces, 
when  communicated  with,  divided  the  treasures  be- 
tween the  India  Museum  and  the  King  of  Siam,  the 
only  Buddhist  sovereign  of  this  day.  The  sandstone 
coffer,  a  soapstone  vase,  a  crystal  vase,  some  bits  of 
bone  and  crumbling  particles  of  wood,  many  pearls, 
tiny  gold  beads  and  flowers,  and  cut  amethyst,  topaz, 
carnelian,  coral,  garnet,  beryl,  and  jade  stars,  to- 
gether with  larger  beaten  gold  ornaments  in  the 
shape  of  the  swastika,  came  to  this  museum— more 
authentic  relics  of  the  founder  of  a  great  religion 
than  any  European  cathedral  contains.  It  pos- 
sesses also  the  inscription  recording  the  deposit  of 
these  relics  of  the  body  of  the  Buddha  in  that  mound 
by  the  members  of  the  Sakya  clan— a  treasure  of 
archaeology  which  makes  real  the  personality  of  the 
Buddha,  the  founder  of  that  religion  no  longer  a 
solar  myth.  This  museum  has  an  average  of  sixty 
thousand  visitors  a  month,  equaling  nearly  the 
throngs  at  the  Louvi'e;  but  the  company  of  bare- 
footed, sheeted  Bengalis  are  so  aimless  and  vacant- 
looking  that  one  questions  whether  the  carefully 
planned  exhibits  reach  beyond  the  retina,  whether 
they  have  any  comprehension  of  the  objects. 

One  does  not  expect  to  find  a  great  leisure  class 
in  India,  where  the  struggle  for  existence  is  so  close 
and  bitter,  but  watching  the  idle  drift  of  natives 


CALCUTTA  IN  CHRISTMAS  WEEK  101 

past  this  stretch  of  Chowringee  Road,  and  the  Mai- 
dan  before  the  museum,  even  more  than  through 
the  labyrinthine  bazaars,  one  is  appalled  and  op- 
pressed with  the  realization  of  India's  population— 
294,360,356.  All  day  the  lean,  wistful,  apathetic 
men  stream  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  going  no- 
where, doing  nothing— hundreds  passing  at  any  mo- 
ment, thousands  in  an  hour,  with  no  women  and 
rarely  a  child  in  sight.  Each  Hindu,  in  his  dirty 
head-sheet,  represents  a  family  crowded  back  some- 
where in  the  city  slums  or  in  mud  villages  beyond. 
One  easily  believes  the  census  figures,  and  sees  how 
the  frightful  problem  of  over-population  besets  the 
empire ;  how  necessary,  almost,  are  plague  and  fam- 
ine, in  lieu  of  wars,  to  reduce  the  swarms  and  herds 
of  these  lank,  inert,  torpid,  half-fed,  half-clothed, 
half-alive  Bengalis,  When  the  sixty  million  Ben- 
galis are  crowded  seven  hundred  and  even  nine 
hundred  to  the  square  mile  of  this  fertile  prov- 
ince, and  are  the  most  prolific  of  Indian  races,  they 
must  reap  three  harvests  a  year  even  to  half  live,  as 
they  do.  Long-continued  peace  and  the  sanitary 
blessings  of  English  rule  have  so  preserved  and  in- 
creased human  life  that  disease  and  starvation  seem 
too  slow  agents  to  accomplish  the  necessary  reduc- 
tion. Only  tidal  waves  and  earthquakes,  annual 
disasters  like  those  of  Pompeii  and  Martinique,  could 
keep  the  population  within  bounds. 

The  Hindus  are  not  a  laughing,  light-hearted,  joy- 
ous people,  and  the  Bengali  is  the  most  melancholy 
of  them.  He  has  little,  almost  no  sense  of  humor, 
his  voice  is  always  in  a  sad  minor  key  when  not 


102  WINTER  INDIA 

quarreling,  and  the  corners  of  his  mouth  are  perma- 
nently drawn  down.  A  sad  sobriety  is  his  sense  of 
dignity  and  good  form.  The  hotel  porter  calls  a 
"fitton"  (phaeton),  not  with  the  tyrant  voice  of 
command,  but  with  the  sad,  piercing  wail  of  a  ban- 
shee. The  sais,  wrapped  in  melancholy  and  a 
quilted  bed-spread,  responds  with  a  mournful  loon 
cry,  and  urges  his  lean,  despondent  horses  forward, 
the  running  sais  in  tattered  sheet  hanging  on  be- 
hind, like  an  old  dust-cloth,  with  bags  of  green  fod- 
der. He  jeers  but  never  laughs,  and  one  wonders 
if  he  can,  with  so  little  room  for  a  normal  pair  of 
lungs  in  that  thin,  flat  body  and  narrow  chest.  With 
no  oxygen  to  speak  of  for  generations,  they  can 
hardly  be  cheerful  or  energetic.  Athletic  sports  are 
not  in  the  line  of  the  young  Bengalis  of  the  Brah- 
man castes  who  crowd  the  schools,  take  all  the 
prizes,  and  fill  the  government  offices, — Young  Ben- 
gal being  usually  a  superficially  educated  poll-par- 
rot quite  as  offensive  and  hopeless  as  Young  China. 
The  Bengalis  are  slow  to  reward  the  Christian  mis- 
sionaries who  have  worked  among  them  for  a  cen- 
tury, but  they  are  converted  to  Mohammedanism  in 
droves,  M^hole  villages  adopting  that  casteless  creed. 
The  laboring  Hindu  seems  generally  incompetent, 
and  sadly  lacks  inventiveness,  originality,  ingenuity, 
and  the  all-embracing  but  indescribable  faculty 
known  as  "  gumption."  His  appliances,  tools,  and 
instruments  are  unchanged  since  the  day  of  Alexan- 
der, and  the  mechanical  sense  seems  wholly  denied 
him.  Everything  has  come  to  him  with  his  con- 
querors.   With  spindle  legs,  flat  chest,  and  shrunken 


CALCUTTA   IN  CHRISTMAS  WEEK  103 

arms,  one  wonders  how  one  of  them  can  do  the  heavy 
work  of  dock-yards,  harbors,  railway  yards,  and 
iron  foundries.  Everything!:  is  hoisted  on  the  head 
and  shoulder,  and  so  little  is  carried  in  the  hand 
that  handles  are  superfluous  ornaments  on  luggage. 
One  meets  grand  pianos  and  packing-cases  of  equal 
size  carried  on  the  heads  of  eight  and  twelve  men, 
who  step  together  with  locked  arms.  I  watched  one 
coolie's  seven  attempts  to  carry  ten  pasteboard  boxes 
from  one  shop  counter  to  another.  Each  time  he 
heaped  the  load  on  one  arm  his  draped  head-sheet 
fell  away.  Each  time  he  reflung  the  sheet  the  boxes 
dropped  from  the  limp  arm,  and  the  alternating 
play  went  on,  until  one  would  have  expected  an 
employer  to  deal  blows— or  for  any  rational  creature 
to  throw  away  the  sheet  and  get  to  work.  Centuries 
have  not  evolved  a  way  of  tying  or  pinning  the 
woman's  veil  fast,  and  weary  housekeepers  describe 
the  ayah's  efforts  to  make  a  bed  and  keep  her  veil 
in  place  as  an  alternating  affair  like  that  of  my 
coolie  and  the  ten  boxes. 

The  curse  of  caste  and  all  the  difficulties  its  ob- 
servance implies  further  complicate  dealings  with 
these  people,  and  a  century  of  enlightened  rule  has 
not  freed  them  from  its  tyranny.  The  railway  has 
done  something  toward  leveling  castes,  but  for  the 
journey  only.  Instead  of  reviling  and  recoiling 
from  the  railway  as  an  invention  of  the  defiling 
European  for  the  express  purpose  of  destroying 
caste,  the  Brahman  artfullv  calls  steam  one  of  the 
thousand  and  eight  uneatalogued  manifestations  of 
Vishnu.    He  conceals  his  sacred  thread,  washes  off 


104  WINTER  INDIA 

his  caste-mark,  and  rides  in  the  jam  of  a  third-class 
car,  touching  sweepers  and  water-carriers  and 
corpse-burners,  and  trusts  to  after-purification.  In- 
stead of  the  Chinese  hostility  to  railways,  they  have 
so  much  adopted  them  for  their  own  that  there  is  al- 
ready a  hereditary  railway  caste,  and  railway  work- 
ers of  the  third  generation  are  following  their  fa- 
thers' occupation  as  naturally  as  if  it  were  an  oc- 
cupation of  centuries'  inheritance.  One  never  ar- 
rives at  an  end  of  the  puzzling  caste  distinctions. 
With  the  four  great  castes  of  Brahmans  subdivided 
into  eighteen  hundred  and  eighty-six  castes,  it  is 
beyond  any  European  mind  to  master  its  intricacies. 
Because  of  caste,  no  one  jostles  you  in  the  street, 
and  insistent  touts  keep  a  safe  distance. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   GREATEST    THING    IN    THE   WORLD 

^N  traveling  north  from  Calcutta  toward 
Darjiling,  we  had  the  same  springless, 
cheerless,  dusty  railway  cars  as  in 
[Southern  India;  the  same  bare  floors, 
'hard,  leather-covered  sofas,  and  rat- 
tling windows  of  violet  glass  that  gave  a  wintry, 
melancholy  look  to  the  flat  Bengal  plain  that  we 
jolted  over  all  the  afternoon.  After  sunset  it  grew 
really  cold  in  the  bare,  dimly  lighted  box,  that 
finally  halted  amid  clamoring  torch-bearers  on  a  sid- 
ing by  a  river  bank.  It  might  as  well  have  been  the 
crumbling  mud  banks  of  the  upper  Missouri  as 
those  of  the  sacred  Ganges  that  we  descended  to 
reach  a  flat-bottomed,  stern-wheel  river  steamer  of 
American  model ;  but  no  band  of  Sioux  or  Crees  on 
the  war-path  ever  raised  such  din  as  the  coolies  at 
Damookdea  when  the  "  up-mail  "  arrived.  The 
very  stars  seemed  to  reel  from  the  noise,  and  we 
breathed  deep  sighs  of  thanksgiving  when  the  boat 
wheezed  away  from  the  movable  station  and  on 
across  "sacred  Mother  Ganges"  to  Sara  Ghat, 
where  another  horde  of  coolies  lay  in  wait,  shriek- 
ing and  gesticulating  in  the  torchlight  as  the  boat 

105 


106  WINTER  INDIA 

advanced.  ''I  catch  coolies,"  said  David,  and  he 
did  so,  dragging  them  on  board  by  leg,  arm,  or  turban 
end,  as  chanced.  Although  we  had  telegraphed  to 
have  lower  sofas  reserved,  the  Anglo-Indian  rail- 
way brain  has  not  been  equal  to  devising  or  borrow- 
ing a  system  of  numbering  and  definitely  securing 
such  a  reservation.  Possession  was  to  the  swiftest, 
and  the  foot-race  up  a  soft  bank  and  over  ends  of 
raihvay  ties  by  torchlight  warmed  one  at  least. 
The  air  grew  colder,  and  bitterly  colder,  as  we  rum- 
bled along  through  the  night,  and  the  loose-fitting 
doors  and  windows  sent  frosty  currents  across  us. 
From  dreams  of  Pullman  curtains,  blankets,  soft 
mattresses  and  springs,  of  double  windows  and 
thick  carpets,  of  sixteen-wheeled  trucks  with  cylin- 
drical springs  under  long  cars  hung  far  above  the 
dusty  road-bed,  we  woke  to  the  cold  reality  of  our 
freight-  and  cattle-car  comforts.  Before  daylight 
tea-trays  flashed  in  the  lamplight  of  way  stations, 
and  cups  of  freshly  made  tea  thawed  one  and 
cheered  the  gray  hour  of  dawn,  while  the  thick  frost 
haze  of  the  plain  half  obscured  the  sky. 

By  six  o'clock  it  was  light  enough  to  see  that  the 
people  had  changed  overnight  with  the  temperature. 
We  had  left  the  sleek,  supple,  barefooted  Bengali 
in  his  sheeted  drapery,  with  his  thin  nose  and  deep 
eyes,  and  come  to  a  race  with  high  cheek  bones  and 
fiat  Mongol  faces,  first  cousins  to  the  Chinese,  even 
to  the  cut  of  their  loose-sleeved  coats  with  over- 
lapping fronts,  and  their  high  cloth  boots.  The 
queue  and  the  turban  were  worn  together ;  and  that 
was  not  more  incongruous  than  the  Hindu  caste- 


THE  GREATEST   THING  IN   THE   WORLD      107 

mark  on  the  brow  of  a  flat,  Mongol  face.  There 
were  ruddy-faced  mountaineers  in  Tatar  caps  on 
the  platforms,  and  unveiled  women  with  elaborate 
head-dresses  and  necklaces  of  silver,  coral,  and  tur- 
quoises. Beyond  the  trees  and  houses  of  Haldibari 
station  there  loomed  a  great  rose-pink  line  of  peaks 
and  snowy  battlements,  stretching  across  the  upper 
sky  and  resting  al)ove  ridges  of  tremendous  blue 
and  hazily  purple  mountains.  As  the  sun  rose,  the 
peaks  paled,  turned  to  gold  and  silvery  white,  and 
the  greatest  mountain  wall  in  the  world  stood 
sharply  revealed,  twenty-eight  thousand  feet  in  air, 
a  parapet  of  high  heaven,  the  first  sight  of  which 
leaves  one  breathless.  Beyond  all  other  mountain 
views  is  that  first  sight  of  the  Himalayas,  as  the 
great  line  of  snow-peaks  towers  from  the  Siliguri- 
plain. 

After  such  mundane  things  as  coffee  and  eggs,  the 
most  absurd  little  narrow-gage  cars,  with  only  can- 
vas curtains  as  protection  from  the  changes  of  moun- 
tain weather,  trundled  us  across  a  few  level  miles, 
and  more  slowly  began  climbing  through  shady 
jungles  and  along  cleared  hillsides,  with  now  a  view 
out  to  the  level,  yellow  plain  where  a  shining  river 
stretched  to  hazy  distance,  and  now  a  view  toward 
silvery  peaks  that  rose  continually  higher.  The  tiny 
engine  gained  a  thousand  feet  in  altitude  each  hour, 
creeping  along  hillsides  planted  with  monotonous 
lines  of  tea-bushes,  through  dry  and  dusty  jungles 
where  trees  and  tree-ferns,  creepers  and  underbrush, 
were  parched  and  frost-nipped,  dull  with  the  dust 
of   the   dry   season.     The   toy   train   crawled  over 


108  WINTER  INDIA 

curves  and  loops,  and  one  wished  that  the  Gladstone 
family,  owning  the  line,  had  provided,  instead  of  the 
string  of  cabs  linked  together,  one  well-built  and 
windowed  trolley-car,  that  one  might  sit  in  comfort 
and  enjoy  the  views  that  continually  opened.  Flat- 
faced  Lepcha  and  Bhutia  women  stared  with  un- 
covered faces  and  Chinese  stolidity  as  the  train 
slowly  passed  them,  each  woman  a  family  savings- 
bank  with  the  hoarded  rupees  strung  in  overlapping 
rows  on  her  head  and  neck.  Tibetans,  too,  w^re  seen, 
and  at  Kurseong,  five  thousand  feet  above  the  sea, 
in  the  midst  of  tea-gardens,  we  were  only  nineteen 
miles  from  the  Tibetan  frontier.  After  tiffin  in  the 
chill,  whitewashed  dining-room  of  the  Kurseong 
hotel,  we  thawed  ourselves  in  the  sunny  garden, 
where  a  Catholic  priest  from  the  adjoining  mission- 
house  pointed  the  way  to  the  pass  at  the  edge  of 
Tibet,  where  he  had  been  spending  some  months. 
Although  the  Tibetans  come  freely  across  the  boun- 
dary to  trade  and  to  work  in  the  tea  plantations,  all 
English  and  Europeans  are  rigorously  excluded, 
and  none  of  the  Indian  tea  openly  reaches  Tibet; 
the  Chinese  monopoly  of  the  tea  trade  being  the 
chief  reason  for  the  severe  exclusion  laws  the  lamas 
maintain. 

Kunchinjinga  seemed  no  nearer,  only  higher, 
still  higher,  and  looming  larger  against  the  sky.  The 
air  was  decidedly  a  nipping  one,  and  with  all  our 
rugs  and  razais  and  hot-water  cans  at  our  feet,  we 
found  the  foolish  little  open  tram-car  anything  but 
a  rational  conveyance  for  high  mountain  travel,  still 
less  appropriate  when  we  ran  into  a  dense,  woolly 


THE  GREATEST   THING  IN   THE   WORLD      109 

white  cloud  that  hid  everything  for  half  an  hour. 
The  toy  engine  screeched,  wheezed,  panted,  and 
slowly  drew  us  up  to  cloudland  by  many  loops  and 
switchbacks;  going  backward  and  forward,  but  al- 
ways upward,  until  we  came  to  Ghoom,  a  double  row 
of  huts  lining  the  track.  There  were  picturesque 
folk  in  that  bazaar,  and  foremost  was  the  "witch  of 
Ghoom,"  a  wrinkled  squaw  who  claimed  to  be  one 
hundred  years  old,  and  begged  for  an  anna  on  that 
account.  A  stumpy  little  Gurkha  officer  boarded 
the  train  there,  his  breast  covered  with  war  medals, 
and  his  wife  covered  with  rows  and  rows  of  gold  and 
silver  coin  necklaces  and  strings  of  coral,  turquoise, 
and  amber  beads;  her  head  as  thickly  plated  with 
family  assets,  and  her  costume  only  richer  in  mate- 
rial than  the  bright  purple,  red,  green,  orange,  and 
yellow  garments  of  the  hill  folk  that  made  Ghoom 's 
one  street  a  lane  of  color  and  light.  Children  rode 
pickaback  instead  of  astride  the  Hindu  hip ;  all 
loads  w^ere  carried  on  the  back  by  a  strap  over  the 
brow,  and  after  the  inert  and  melancholy  Hindus, 
these  hill  folk  seemed  a  light-hearted,  laughing 
people. 

We  were  eight  hours  in  accomplishing  the  fifty 
miles,  reaching  an  elevation  of  7470  feet  at  Ghoom, 
and  descending  to  6000  feet  at  Darjiling,  a  whole 
daylight  of  child's  play  with  a  toy  train  to  any  one 
who  has  traveled  on  Colorado's  narrow-gage  moun- 
tain railways. 

We  were  carried  from  the  station  to  the  hotel  in 
dandy-wallahs,  carrying-chairs  like  the  swan  and 
shell    chariots    of    stage    j^antomimes,    the    bearers 


110  WINTER  INDIA 

turning  them  backward  to  climb  steps  or  steep 
places.  From  the  hotel  windows  and  the  terraced 
roads  of  the  town,  which  occupies  the  crest  of  a 
knife-edged  ridge,  one  has  a  full  view  of  the  front  of 
Kunchinjinga  and  the  long  running  line  of  snows 
across  the  deep  chasm  of  the  Ran  jit.  All  too  soon 
sunset  reversed  the  pageant  of  the  morning,  and  as 
the  white  peaks  changed  to  gold,  flame  color,  and 
rose-pink,  blue  and  purple  mists  filled  each  ravine 
and  valley.  The  rosy  phantom  lingered  long  before 
fading  to  cold  gray  and  silver,  the  western  sky  glow- 
ing for  a  full  hour,  and  a  young  white  moon  showing 
through  the  leafless  trees. 

The  bazaar  or  market-place  was  empty  then,  for  its 
gala  time  is  on  Sunday  morning,  when  the  tea-pick- 
ers come  from  remotest  plantations  to  show  and  buy 
their  finery ;  but  there  was  a  curio-shop  whose  owner 
was  chief  est  curio  of  the  lot— one  of  the  many  who 
announce  that  they  will  surely  reach  Lhasa.  He 
was  then  studying  Tibetan,  and  produced  an  alleged 
lama  who  was  disloyally  teaching  him  the  language 
and  the  religious  exercises  and  formula  that  would 
help  him  to  enter  Lhasa  in  disguise.  The  lama 
fitted  well  into  the  room  full  of  prayer-wheels,  skull 
drums,  skull  bowls,  tobacco-pouches,  relic-boxes, 
bells,  and  images,  and  his  presence  surely  helped 
business.  With  serious  face  the  would-be  explorer 
told  how  he  should  be  welcomed  to  Lhasa  as  an 
envoy  of  the  Theosophical  Societies  of  Paris  and 
London;  how  he  should  gather  religious  objects  for 
Prince  Ferdinand  d'Este,  and  butterflies  for  Baron 
Rothschild,  the  latter  guaranteeing  all  the  expenses 


THE  GREATEST  THING   IN   THE   WORLD      111 

of  the  trip  for  the  sake  of  the  resulting  collections. 
He  had  butterflies  by  the  hundreds,  great  jewel- 
winged  creatures  of  every  color,  with  iridescent 
shadings  and  velvet  bloom  that  were  a  delight  to 
the  eye.  Tibet  may  still  be  worth  penetrating  for 
unknown  butterflies,  but  from  the  early  visits  of 
French  priests  and  English  travelers  down  to  the  re- 
cent visit  of  Pundit  Chandra  Das,  of  native  members 
of  the  Geological  Survey  of  India,  and  of  the  Japan- 
ese Buddhist  priests,  about  all  that  the  world  in  gen- 
eral wants  to  know  about  Lhasa  is  known.  Photo- 
graphs of  its  streets  and  monasteries  prove  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  old  engravings;  Dr.  Waddell  has 
translated  and  edited  the  very  complete  local  guide 
for  Lhasa ;  and  three  women  have  gone  as  near  to 
Lhasa  as  any  explorer  since  Abbe  Hue.  All  the 
blue-eyed  travelers  naturally  failed  to  disguise  them- 
selves, and  the  Japanese  had  least  difficulty  in  the 
enterprise. 

Long  before  daylight  the  next  morning  we  started 
in  chairs  in  frosty  darkness,  a  sky  full  of  glittering 
stars  lighting  dimly  the  gigantic  white  shadows  so 
strangely  high  in  the  sky.  We  passed  through  the 
military  station  and  sanatorium  of  Jelapahar,  along 
the  side  of  the  knife-ridge  to  Ghoom,  and  up  to  the 
isolated  summit  of  Tiger  Hill,  fifteen  hundred  feet 
higher  than  Darjiling,  where  nothing  interrupts  the 
view  of  the  whole  range  of  snow-peaks  from  Kun- 
chinjinga  to  Mount  Everest.  We  sat  in  the  lee  of  a 
boulder,  wrapped  in  rugs  and  razais,  our  veins  freez- 
ing in  that  thin,  icy,  mountain-top  air,  while  the 
mixed  lot  of  coolies  and  horse-boys  accompanying 


112  WINTER  INDIA 

the  tourist  contingent  were  unconscious  of  the  cold ; 
coolie  No.  108  improving  the  time  by  tying  large 
turquoises  to  holes  in  the  lobes  of  his  ears.  They  all 
wore  these  rough  Tibetan  turquoise  ornaments,  and 
turned  many  rupees  by  their  sale  while  we  waited  for 
the  sun,  the  lobe  of  the  ear  being  the  regulation  show- 
case for  these  regular  agents  of  a  regular  jewel  mer- 
chant. The  smart  tourist  always  suspects  the 
professional  dealer,  and  much  more  confidingly 
trusts  the  simple  hillman,  and  pays  him  a  better 
price  for  bits  of  chalk  dyed  blue  or  ground  glass 
of  cerulean  hue.  The  tip  of  Kunchinjinga,  28,150 
feet  in  air,  first  turned  rose-red  and  then  caught  the 
sun's  rays,  that  flashed  electrically  down  the  long 
white  line — a  spectacle  unequaled.  Even  the  tour- 
ist's perpetual-motion  tongue  was  silenced  as  the 
color  pageant  proceeded,  and  Kunchinjinga,  with 
half  of  its  height  snow-covered,  so  transcended  all 
one's  imaginings  that  it  did  not  seem  the  vision 
could  be  reality.  Mount  Everest,  to  our  bitter  disap- 
pointment, sulked  in  a  tent  of  clouds  to  westward; 
but  Kunchinjinga  was  visible  all  day  long  from 
our  windows,  and  at  sunset  ran  through  its  color 
changes  once  more. 

It  was  degrees  and  degrees  colder  the  next  morn- 
ing, but  the  sky  was  clearer,  and  the  dazzling  stars 
lighted  the  white  phantom  across  the  Kan  jit  more 
clearly.  The  frost  lay  like  snow  on  Tiger  Hill ;  the 
water  by  the  wayside  was  frozen ;  and  the  wind 
blew  with  glacial  edge  that  benumbed  the  little  com- 
pany of  sun-worshipers  gathered  there  at  dawn. 
Again  the  world  was  suffused  with  a  rose  flush,  a 


THE  GREATEST   THING   IN   THE   WORLD      113 

flash  of  sunlight  touched  Kunchinjinga  and  ran 
along  the  line  of  peaks  clear  to  the  three  white  pin- 
nacles that  rise  above  the  depression  of  Choi  a  Pass. 
I  had  not  expected  Mount  Everest  to  be  merely  one 
small  finger-tip  of  snow  one  hundred  and  twenty 
miles  away.  It  was  hardly  worth  while  to  hold  up 
field-glasses  in  that  arctic  wind  to  look  at  that  tri- 
fling nodule  on  the  far  horizon.  It  did  not  look 
like  the  greatest  mountain  in  the  world,  "the  high- 
est measured  elevation  on  earth."  Imagination 
could  not  invest  it  with  any  superiority — not  while 
splendid  Kunchinjinga  was  there  before  us,  with 
snow  streamers  and  pennants  and  rosy  cloud-ban- 
ners floating  away  from  those  storehouse  peaks  of 
gold,  silver,  gems,  and  grains,  as  the  Tibetans  de- 
scribe the  five  summits. 

"  Why  are  the  globe-trotters  so  bent  on  seeing 
Mount  Everest?"  asked  a  Geological  Survey  officer. 
*'It  is  not  the  finest  peak,  if  it  is  the  highest.  It 
is  only  megalomania  that  takes  the  tourists  off  to 
Tiger  Hill  to  see  the  highest  peak  in  the  world. 
Everest  is  not  to  be  compared  for  looks  with  Peak 
XIII  and  Peak  D^.  Those  are  the  finest  arrange- 
ments in  rock  and  snow  in  the  Himalayas.  And 
then.  Mount  Everest  is  not  in  British  territory,  you 
know,  and  until  we  annex  Nepal,  I  object  to  its  be- 
ing made  so  much  of." 

When  we  had  come  down  from  the  Himalayan 
heights  to  the  commonplace  level  of  the  plains  again, 
and  recrossed  the  Ganges,  we  had  to  share  the  two- 
sofa  compartment  with  a  severely  silent  and  resent- 
ful Anglo-Indian  matron,  who  stared  at  us  heart- 


114  WINTER  INDIA 

lessly,  contemptuously,  and  evidently  denied  us  the 
right  to  occupy  any  part  of  her  compartment  and 
hemisphere.  For  the  trip  to  Calcutta,  she  had 
brought  with  her  into  the  compartment  a  tin 
steamer-trunk,  a  canvas  hold-all,  two  dressing-bags, 
a  Gladstone  bag,  a  tiffin-basket,  a  basket  tea-pot,  a 
tin  bonnet-box,  a  roll  of  razais  and  fur  rugs,  a  shawl- 
strap  bundle  of  cloaks  and  jackets,  and  one  large 
bouquet.    Her  "boxes"  were  in  the  luggage- van. 

But  this  lady  of  luggage  was  only  forerunner  to 
the  memsahib  we  met  when  we  left  Calcutta  the 
next  night.  We  had  sent  the  bearer  ahead  with  our 
luggage  two  hours  before  train  time.  Wlien  we 
reached  the  Howrah  station,  we  found  that  while  our 
man  was  called  off  to  pay  a  charge  for  extra  luggage 
the  paper  of  reservation  had  been  unpinned  from  one 
lower  berth  and  fastened  to  the  upper  one  by  an 
Anglo-Indian  lady,  who  then  unrolled  her  bedding, 
seated  herself  on  it,  and  became  deaf  to  any  remarks 
or  remonstrance.  She  had  brought  with  her  into  the 
compartment  the  usual  British  impedimenta — tin 
steamer-trunk,  canvas  hold-all,  Gladstone  bag,  laun- 
dry-bag, dressing-bag,  tiffin-basket,  a  roll  of  um- 
brellas, a  tennis  racket,  a  bag  with  her  pith  hat,  also 
a  wicker  chair,  a  collection  of  garments  which  hung 
from  every  available  hook,  and  a  large  round-topped 
Saratoga  trunk.  When  we  protested  to  the  station- 
master  about  the  changing  of  his  reservations,  he 
could  or  dared  do  nothing.  Possession  was  nine 
points,  and  the  tenth  was  a  gleam  in  her  eye  that 
might  have  warned  away  a  lion-tamer.  We  pro- 
duced our  receipts  and  insisted  that  the  station-mas- 


THE  GREATEST   THING  IN   THE   WORLD      115 

ter  should  send  our  large  trunks  into  the  compart- 
ment, too,  and  give  us  back  th(?  sixteen  rupees  we 
had  paid  for  extra  luggage,  or  else  the  memsahib's 
trunks  should  go.  They  went;  and  she  paid  six 
rupees  through  the  window  Avith  wrath  and  threats. 
Only  the  thinnest  veneer  of  civilization  prevented 
her  from  laying  violent  hands  upon  us  then,  or 
strangling  us  in  the  night.  Nothing  so  shocks  and 
offends  the  Anglo-Indian  traveler  on  American 
transcontinental  trains  as  the  publicity  of  the  Pull- 
man cars,  where  each  berth  has  its  curtain  and  num- 
ber, and  is  as  securely  reserved  as  a  theater  chair. 
May  they  always  occupy  four-berthed,  uncurtained 
carriages  with  infuriated  strangers  who  have  stolen 
their  lower  berths  and  owe  them  a  grudge  besides ! 


CHAPTER  IX 

MAHABODIII,    THE   PLACE   OF    GREAT   INTELLIGENCE 

|0T  Jerusalem  nor  even  Mecca  is  held 
in  greater  reverence  by  the  millions  of 
Christians  and  Mohammedans  than  is 
Buddha-Gaya  by  many  more  millions 
of  Buddhists,  who,  inhabiting  every 
part  of  Asia  save  India,  look  upon  the  temple  at 
Mahabodhi  as  their  greatest  shrine,  to  the  Sacred 
Bo-tree  beside  it  as  their  most  holy  relic  and  living 
symbol,  the  most  venerated,  if  not  strictly  the  most 
venerable,  tree  on  earth — Bodhi-druma,  the  Tree 
of  Knowledge,  beneath  which  Gautama  became  the 
Buddha,  the  Awakened,  the  Enlightened. 

The  so-called  Buddhist  Holy  Land,  the  ancient 
Magadha,  lies  east  of  Benares  and  south  of  the 
Ganges  River,  within  a  radius  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  from  Buddha-Gaya.  The  birthplace  of 
the  Nepalese  prince  Siddhartha,  and  the  original 
burial-place  of  Gautama  Buddha,  so  recently  iden- 
tified and  excavated,  are  two  hundred  miles  north  of 
Buddha-Gaya,  near  the  Nepal  frontier.  Every  place 
associated  with  the  life  of  the  Great  Teacher  was 
marked  by  an  inscribed  column  or  a  votive  stupa 
by  the  emperor  Asoka  250  b.c.  ;  and  from  the  abun- 

116 


THE  PLACE  OF  GREAT  INTELLIGENCE        117 

dant  Pali,  Sanskrit,  and  Chinese  accounts,  every 
place  has  been  exactly  determined,  the  recent  finding 
of  the  very  bones  of  the  body  of  Buddha  in  the  in- 
scribed casket  which  his  family  had  deposited  be- 
neath the  great  mound  at  Piprawah  adding  the  last 
historic  link  in  the  chain,  and  leaving  the  life  of 
Gautama  Buddha  an  open  book. 

Very  evidently  no  other  place  in  India  has  such 
historical  importance,  and  yet  no  place  is  so  seldom 
visited  by  the  legion  of  winter  tourists,  as  this 
Buddha-Gaya  of  modern  Behar,  the  Uruwela  of  an- 
cient Magadha,  the  birthplace  of  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  religions.  Until  Lord  Elgin's  visit  in  1895, 
no  viceroy  had  sought  this  most  ancient  and  historic 
spot  in  the  empire.  Outward  India  and  the  life  of 
the  people  liave  changed  so  little  that  one  easily 
pictures  the  scenes  occurring  twenty-five  centuries 
ago  in  the  same  setting — when  the  Great  Knight, 
Siddhartha,  the  Rajput,  having  made  the  Great  Re- 
nunciation, left  family  and  home  and  high  estate 
on  the  full-moon  night  of  July,  and,  with  his  five 
disciples,  journeyed  southward  from  his  capital  at 
Kapilavastu  to  Rajagriha,  and  finally  along  the 
river  bank  to  the  jungles  of  Uruwela,  where,  for 
six  years,  he  practised  the  most  rigorous  penance, 
self-torture,  and  mortification.  When  he  had  re- 
duced himself  to  living  on  one  grain  of  rice  a  day, 
he  fell  as  in  death ;  and  then,  convinced  of  the  use- 
lessness  of  such  a  life  of  extreme  bodily  penance, 
he  partook  of  food.  His  disciples  forsook  this 
starved  ascetic  for  so  basely  yielding  to  the  body, 
and    the    monk    Gautama    wandered    to    the    river 


118  WINTER  INDIA 

bank,  where  Sujata,  a  villager's  daughter,  gave  him 
a  bowl  of  milk  and  honey  which  he  consumed  in 
the  shade  of  a  bo-tree.  Still  sitting  there,  facing 
eastward,  he  attained  full  and  perfect  wisdom,  the 
supreme  knowledge,  in  four  meditations.  For  seven 
times  seven  days  and  nights  he  continued  his  vigils, 
assailed  by  all  temptations  and  evils,  say  the  legends. 
For  one  space  he  paced  to  and  fro  beyond  the  Bo- 
tree — a  path  immortalized  and  literally  made  the 
Jeweled  Cloister.  For  another  space  he  regarded 
the  tree  day  and  night,  without  removing  his  eyes, 
the  great  Nagas,  or  cobra  kings,  protecting  him  with 
their  outspread  hoods  from  the  chilling  rain,  and  the 
snails  covering  his  head  with  their  cool,  moist  bodies 
from  the  scorching  sun.  He  could  then  have  entered 
into  Nirvana,  but  upon  further  meditation  he  de- 
termined to  share  his  treasure  of  wisdom  with  his 
fellow-men.  Resuming  his  staff  and  begging-bowl, 
he  walked  on  to  Benares  and  there  converted  his  lost 
disciples  and  ultimately  the  world,  Gautama  Bud- 
dha being  first  to  preach  universal  equality  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man ;  enjoining  pity,  love,  and  char- 
ity for  all ;  protesting  against  caste  distinctions, 
against  propitiation  by  sacrifices,  penances,  and  of- 
ferings; and  teaching  that  man  must  attain  divine 
favor  and  perfect  wisdom  by  his  moral  qualities  and 
pure  life  alone,  and  thus  reach  the  peace  of  Nirvana, 
the  calm  that  follows  upon  self-victory,  the  extinc- 
tion of  anger,  lust,  and  ignorance. 

At  the  end  of  six  months  he  sent  his  sixty  disci- 
ples forth  to  preach  the  new  wisdom,  and  himself  re- 
turned to  the  foot  of  this  Bo-tree  at  Uruwela,  and, 


THE   PLACE  OF  GREAT   INTELLIGENCE       119 

there  converting  the  three  fire-worshiping  Brahman 
hermits  who  lived  in  that  solitude,  he  gained  Ka- 
syapa,  bcst-bcloved  disciple  after  his  cousin  Ananda. 
As  a  mendicant,  begging  from  door  to  door,  he  re- 
visited Kapilavastu  and  saw  again  his  aged  father 
and  his  widowed  wife,  Yasodhara,  who  adopted  the 
religious  life  and  became  the  first  Buddhist  nun. 
His  son,  Rahula,  demanding  his  inheritance,  was  en- 
dowed with  some  of  the  wisdom  acquired  by  the 
Buddha  beneath  the  Bo-tree  and  admitted  to  the 
order,  and  Gautama's  half-brother  also  assumed  the 
mendicant's  robe  and  bowl.  For  forty-four  years 
after  the  great  struggle  beneath  the  Bo-tree,  Bud- 
dha taught  in  the  Deer  Park  at  Benares,  beneath 
this  sacred  Bo-tree  at  Uruwela,  or  in  the  Bamboo 
Grove  at  Rajagriha  during  the  rainy  season ;  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  year  wandered  through  Magadha, 
preaching  the  religion  that  has  held  sway  over  a 
great  part  of  Asia  for  twenty-five  centuries,  and 
in  corrupt  form  now  holds  more  adherents  than 
any  other  faith.  Preaching  the  equality  of  men,  he 
yet  attracted  disciples  of  high  birth  and  station; 
and  with  no  praises  or  reverence  for  women,  voicing 
only  the  bitterest  accusations  and  charges  against 
the  whole  sex,  women  flocked  to  his  teachings,  and 
he  established  unwillingly,  after  much  hesitation, 
the  crowded  orders  of  female  mendicants. 

After  these  forty-four  years  of  active  proselytism 
and  conversion,  he  announced  that  he  was  about  to 
die.  He  was  then  in  his  eightieth  year;  and  while 
begging  his  way  toward  Kapilavastu,  he  ate  of  some 
rice  and  young  pork  given  him  in  his  begging-bowl, 


120  WINTER  INDIA 

and  died  that  night  beneath  a  bo-tree  in  a  grove 
near  Kusinagara — 543  b.c,  if  we  accept  the  older 
Pali  or  Cingalese  records  of  the  southern  Buddhists, 
400  B.C.,  or  478  B.C.,  according  to  the  Sanskrit  rec- 
ords. Then  all  nature  mourned,  and  the  Bo-tree, 
for  the  only  time,  shed  its  leaves.  His  remains  were 
cremated  on  the  spot  where  he  died,  and  a  great 
stupa  raised  by  the  Sakya  clan  over  the  one-eighth 
portion  of  the  ashes  and  relics  allotted  them.  The 
rest  of  the  relics  were  distributed  to  seven  centers 
of  his  docti'inal  teachings,  where  similar  monuments 
were  raised.  Excavations  at  Buddha-Gaya,  Bhatti- 
prolu,  and  Piprawah  have  yielded  relic-caskets 
containing  these  undoubted  fragments  of  the  body 
of  Buddha,  accompanied  in  every  instance  by  stores 
of  pearls  and  precious  stones,  gold-leaf  ornaments 
in  the  form  of  swastikas,  seals,  and  inscribed  tablets. 
The  soapstone,  crystal,  and  beryl  vases  and  cylin- 
ders containing  these  relics  are  admirable  pieces  of 
workmanship,  but  the  only  inscriptions  dating  from 
Gautama's  lifetime  now  visible  are  those  from  the 
Piprawah  mound,  housed  in  the  India  Museum  at 
Calcutta. 

The  doctrines  were  preserved  in  oral  versions, 
which  were  correctly  chanted  for  months  at  a  time 
by  the  priests  participating  in  the  First  and  Second 
Councils,  held  one  hundred  and  two  hundred  years 
after  his  death.  At  the  Third  Council,  called  by  the 
emperor  Asoka  in  244  B.C.,  a  first  record  of  the 
Orthodox  Canon  was  written  on  palm  leaves  in 
Pali,  the  language  of  Magadha.  A  fourth  council 
of  Buddhists  was  held  by  the  Scythian  king  Ka- 


THE  PLACE  OF  GREAT   INTELLIGENCE       123 

nishka  in  1,  or  40  a.d.,  and  elaborate  commentaries 
were  written  in  Sanskrit  and,  it  is  said,  engraved 
on  copper  plates  and  buried  beneath  a  great  stupa— 
a  prize  for  archaeologists  to  search  for,  and  for  sen- 
sation-seekers to  manufacture  fraudulently.  The 
separation  between  the  Northern  or  Sanskrit  school 
and  the  Pali  or  Southern  school  of  Buddhists  was 
definite  then,  and  in  634  a.d.  Iliouen  Thsang,  the 
Chinese  priest,  attended  the  great  Sanskrit  Council 
of  Siladitya,  when  the  Cingalese  versions,  the  "Lit- 
tle Vehicle"  of  the  Pali  teachers,  were  formally 
condemned  by  the  adherents  of  the  Sanskrit  "Great 
Vehicle."  Hiouen  Thsang  acquired  both  languages, 
and  studied  both  vehicles  in  monasteries  in  Kash- 
mir and  Magadha,  translated  innumerable  works 
into  Chinese,  and  by  his  description  of  the  sur- 
roundings, the  monuments,  the  images,  treasures, 
and  relics  of  the  sacred  places,  made  the  work  of 
archogologists  and  historians  comparatively  easy — 
his  descriptions  as  precise  as  those  of  a  modern  Bae- 
deker, his  services  comparable  to  those  of  Pausanias 
in  classic  Greece.  A  modern  council  of  Buddhists 
was  held  in  Ceylon  in  1875,  looking  to  the  transla- 
tion, revision,  and  publication  of  the  Cingalese  and 
Pali  texts,  and  a  Pali  Text  Society  has  forwarded 
the  effort  to  present  these  oldest  Buddhist  books  to 
modern  readers,  Dr.  Rhys  Davids  having  done  most 
to  introduce  Buddhist  literature  to  English-speaking 
people.  Dr.  Max  Mliller  and  many  Continental 
scholars  have  given  translations  of  the  Sacred  San- 
skrit books. 

It  was  a  raw  January  morning,  with  the  yellow 


124 


WINTER   INDIA 


dust  whirling  in  clouds,  when  I  reached  Gaya  sta- 
tion on  my  pilgrimage  to  the  Tree  of  Knowledge, 
and  it  was  a  cold,  dull,  prosaic  drive  of  a  mile  in 
a  rattling  gharry  to  Gaya  town  and  the  dak  bangla, 
where  the  government  provides  chill  cheer  for  the 
few  European  travelers  who  ever  rest  there.     One 


S1i5^^. 


elephant  passed  by  on  the  station  road, — a  touch 
of  the  ancient  East,  the  Hindu  India,  that  did  not 
accord  with  the  background  of  barbed-wire  fences, 
telegraph  poles,  and  railway  tracks,  nor  with  the 
well-metaled  highway  of  British  India  that  the 
creature  trod  upon.  A  string  of  dusty  brown 
camels  filed  across  the  neutral,  dusty  distance,  and 
turbaned  folk  sped  by  in  bullock-carts  or  gay 
ekhas,  the  native  cabs,  mere  curtained  canopies  hung 
with  balls  and  bells,  and  the  ponies  caparisoned  to 
match,  with  high,  peaked  collars  and  blue  bead  neck- 
laces. 


THE   PLACE  OF   GREAT   INTELLIGENCE       125 

Modern  Gaya,  the  Sahibs'  market,  is  an  orderly 
new  town  with  broad  thoroughfares  and  busy  ba- 
zaars, the  whitewashed  houses,  the  tidy  streets  and 
drains  betraying  the  infallible  signs  of  model  Brit- 
ish rule,  prosperity,  and  eternal  sanitation.  It  is 
distinct  from  the  more  ancient  Brahm-Gaya,  where 
huddled  houses  cut  by  narrow  streets  crowd  around 
the  great  Brahman  temple  of  the  Vishnupad  by  the 
river  bank,  to  which  more  than  one  hundred  thou- 
sand Hindu  pilgrims  come  to  bathe  and  pray  each 
year— a  temple  crowded  with  Buddhist  sculptures 
and  wreck  from  older  temples. 

The  dak  bangla  at  Gaya  stands  in  a  great  shady 
compound,  %vhieh  looks  upon  a  busy  part  of  a  main 
street,  a  continuous  panorama  of  half-clad  and 
sheeted  figures,  of  absurd  ekkas  and  l5ullock-carts 
going  by  beyond  the  bangla  lawn,  as  if  drawn 
across  a  stage  for  one's  delight.  There  is  a  well 
at  one  side  of  the  compound,  to  which  we  watched 
all  the  neighbor  folk  come  to  fill  their  brass  lotas 
or  heavy,  red  earthen  jars— half-veiled  women,  who 
needed  help  to  lift  the  great  weights  and  poise  them 
on  their  heads,  their  slender,  feeble  figures  bending 
under  the  weight.  Others,  balancing  these  great  am- 
phorae with  ease,  passed  out  with  the  graceful,  noble 
tread  of  goddesses,  the  living  figures  of  a  Greek  frieze. 
On  the  bangla 's  covered  portico  we  were  sheltered 
from  the  wind  and  dust,  the  sun  shone  warmly,  and 
little  parrakeets  twittered  and  shrieked,  flying  about 
the  lawn.  We  were  so  well  entertained  with  this 
spectacle  and  play  of  Hindu  life,  that  we  sat  for 
an  hour— balanced  ourselves,  rather,  for  that  space 


126  WINTER  INDIA 

—  on  decrepit  chairs  which,  rocking  on  uncertain  legs, 
threatened  momently  to  fall  beneath  us,  if  the  torn 
and  sagging  rush  seats  did  not  sooner  engulf  us. 
"  If  the  dak  bangla's  chairs  were  then  as  they  are 
now,  no  wonder  Buddha  sat  for  six  years  under  the 
Bo-tree,"  wrote  the  one  American  visitor  of  six 
seasons  in  the  visitors'  book.  In  time  we  ate  an 
early  and  hurried  tiffin — our  daily  goat-chop,  gar- 
nished with  green  peas  that  rattled  upon  the  plate 
like  so  much  bird-shot,  and  the  usual  cold  and  sod- 
den Indian  rice  poured  over  with  a  blackish  curry 
mixture  diversified  by  pools  of  clear  grease — the 
worst-made  curry  in  the  world,  always  served  one 
at  Indian  hotels,  dak  banglas,  and  railway  refresh- 
ment-rooms. '  *  Chutney  ?  Chutney  ?  No ! ' '  came 
the  regular  Indian  response  of  surprise  when  we 
asked  for  some  palliative,  some  condiment  to  make 
the  dish  of  the  country  go  down  protesting  throats; 
but  the  khansamah  boasted  that  he  would  be  able 
to  produce  "  a  vary  splendid  dinner,  with  cauli- 
flower, mem,"  in  the  evening. 

The  road  southward  for  seven  miles  to  Buddha- 
Gaya  was  broad,  smooth,  and  well  made,  shaded 
with  tamarisk-  and  bo-trees,  strung  along  with  lit- 
tle hamlets  and  mud  huts,  and  following  the  banks 
of  the  Phalgu  River.  Each  group  of  dwellings  had 
its  common  well,  and,  under  some  wide-spreading 
tree,  a  plastered-up  terrace  or  altar  supported  a 
tiny  shrine,  or  the  greasy  image  of  a  Hindu  god, — 
this  the  same  pagan,  heathen  India,  the  life  little 
changed  since  the  all-perfect  Gautama  Buddha  used 
to  pass  this  way  in  his  yellow  robes,  with  his  golden 


THE  PLACE  OF  GREAT  INTELLIGENCE        129 

begging-bowl  and  a  glory  of  six  cubits  height  ex- 
tending around  his  head.  Brown  fields  stretched 
on  either  hand ;  brown  hills  bounded  the  view ;  and 
narrow  streams  loitered  here  and  there  among  the 
stones  of  the  broad,  sandy  river-bed.  A  few  bare- 
footed people  moved  by  in  silence,  and  the  brown 
monotony,  the  comforting  warmth  of  the  hot  midday 
sun,  and  the  quivering  heat-rays  in  the  air,  soon 
gave  an  eerie,  unreal  look  to  things,  a  strange,  hazy, 
hypnotic  effect,  a  sense  of  dreamy  spell. 

"VVe  turned  from  the  Gaya  road  to  a  massive  white 
gateway,  where  sheeted  Brahmans  and  turbaned  folk 
lay  in  leisured  wait  for  us,  and  noble  white  bullocks 
rested  beside  tilted  carts  that  had  brought  priestly 
visitors  to  this  Sannyasi  or  Shivaite  college  of  Bud- 
dha-Gaya.  A  much-marked  Brahman,  with  the  sa- 
cred white  thread  across  his  shoulder,  led  us  off  by 
a  sandy  path  toward  the  pinnacle  of  a  temple  roof 
just  showing  beyond  some  tree- tops,  when  suddenly 
all  Mahabodhi,  the  Place  of  Great  Intelligence,  was 
revealed  to  us.  The  sunken  courtyard  of  the  Sacred 
Bo-tree  lay  at  our  feet,  and  a  great  nine-storied, 
pyramidal  temple  soared  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet 
in  air,  seemingly  perfect  in  every  line,  from  foun- 
dation-stone to  the  gilded  pineapple  pinnacle, — 
precisely  the  temple  built  in  the  second  or  in  the 
sixth  century,  as  may  some  time  be  agreed  upon, 
but  certainly  the  great  temple  that  Hiouen  Thsang 
saw.  There  was,  at  the  first  glance,  nothing  ruinous 
or  hoary  or  venerable  about  the  apparently  well- 
preserved  monument.  The  good  repair  was  too  dis- 
enchantingly  obtrusive  and  conspicuous,  and  for  sen- 


130  WINTER  INDIA 

timent's  sake  one  would  almost  rather  have  seen 
the  temple  crumbling  and  vine-grown  in  a  rubbish- 
choked  court,  as  it  was  in  1860.  There  was  a  chill- 
ing neatness  and  a  forbidding  order,  too,  about  the 
crowded  monuments,  remains  of  monuments,  and 
foundations  of  monuments  in  that  flagged  area 
thirty  feet  below  us,  which  told  of  the  archaeologist 
Avith  his  tape-measure,  his  numbers  and  labels,  the 
restorer  with  his  healing  plaster  and  illusive  cement. 
The  view  came  so  suddenly,  there  was  such  silence, 
with  no  moving  object  anywhere  in  sight,  that  it 
Avas  as  unreal  as  if  a  vast  drop-curtain  had  blocked 
the  path.  The  silence,  too,  was  befitting  the  sacred 
place,  the  actual  scene  of  the  great  penance  and 
struggle,  the  illumining  of  the  Light  of  Asia,  the 
birthplace  of  India's  noblest  religious  system,  a 
place  hallowed  by  the  traditions  and  associations  of 
twenty-five  centuries  of  religious  life.  No  other 
visitors,  not  a  pilgrim  nor  a  Avorshiper,  came  to  that 
court  for  hours.  Our  melancholy  Moslem  servant, 
the  big,  sheeted  Brahman,  who  knew  as  little  as  the 
Moslem  of  this  treasure-spot,  and  the  languid,  lesser 
Brahman,  more  brainless  still,  A\-ere  the  only  moving 
creatures  in  all  that  sunny  space.  The  shrieks  of 
little  parakeets,  as  they  flew  AAdth  flashes  of  emerald 
light  in  and  out  of  the  niches  of  the  temple  and  the 
branches  of  the  Sacred  Bo-tree,  were  the  only  sounds 
in  the  melloAV,  slumbering  air,  that  same  perfect 
midday  atmosphere  that  belongs  to  the  ideal  days 
of  the  East  Indian  Avinter,  as  to  the  sun-ripe  days 
of  the  American  Indian  summer.  All  the  Avorld 
droAvsed  in  that  golden  calm— it  was  the  ideal  Ma- 
habodhi. 


THE  PLACE  OF  GREAT  INTELLIGENCE       131 

lu  Hiouon  Thsang's  time  buildinf?s  and  monu- 
ments were  crowded  together,  almost  touching  for 
a  mile  and  a  half,  all  round  the  Sacred  Tree.  There 
remain  only  what  one  sees  in  the  single  glance  at 
the  sunken  area ;  save  as  archaeologists,  digging  here 
and  there,  have  found  the  remnants  of  palace  and 
temple  and  monastery  walls,  of  cloisters  and  tanks 
and  towers.  Where  we  stood  had  been  the  great 
entrance  of  the  monastery,  where  three  thousand 
priests  once  lived,  and  treasures  incalculable  accu- 
mulated around  an  inner  arcanum,  whose  solid  gold 
statue  was  covered  from  foot  to  crown  with  jewel 
offerings.  Instead  of  the  great  tower-capped  walls 
stretching  a  thousand  feet  either  w'ay,  and  the 
throngs  of  yellow-robed  priests,  there  is  a  very  mod- 
ern little  galvanized  iron  pavilion  sheltering  a  col- 
lection of  broken  images,  sculptured  and  inscribed 
stones,  salved  from  the  pits  and  rubbish-heaps 
around,  wreckage  gathered  after  centuries  of  aban- 
donment and  final  IMohammedan  vandalism.  The 
most  valuable  and  interesting  stones  have  been  sent 
to  the  Calcutta  Museum,  and  some  few  to  London. 
The  guides,  of  course,  knew  next  to  nothing  about 
these  relics.  ''  General  Cunningham  put  them 
there  " — "  General  Cunningham  vary  high  ess- 
teemed  them,"  etc.  The  Brahman  knew  nothing  of 
the  history  of  the  temple,  the  tree,  or  the  place,  and 
was  perhaps  the  most  aggravatingly  disappointing 
of  all  his  vampire  tribe  that  fasten  upon  one  in  the 
show-places  of  India.  Our  gloomy  and  monosylla- 
bic Mohammedan— may  all  travelers  in  India  be- 
ware of  that   professional   traveling  servant.   Fog- 


132  WINTER  INDIA 

lou  Rahman!— knew  far,  far  less.  I  had  to  cross- 
question,  call  for  and  demand  to  be  shown  this  and 
that ;  to  poke  and  pry,  push  and  insist  and  rack  my 
memory  for  the  very  little  it  held  of  Fahien's  or 
Hiouen  Thsang's  travels.  "He  duss-sunt  know-ah. 
People  never  ask— just  memsahib  want  to  know," 
sighed  the  melancholy  Moslem. 

"Where  are  the  caves  in  the  hills  where  the 
Buddha  lived?  Up  there?"  I  asked,  pointing.  "Is 
there  a  cave  there  with  carvings  all  over  the  walls  ?  ' ' 

The  Brahman  could  not  have  looked  blanker  if 
I  had  asked  for  the  Eiffel  Tower,  It  took  long  con- 
sultation and  visible  guesswork  by  both  Brahman 
and  Foglou  Rahman  for  them  to  answer:  "Maybe 
there  are  some  holes  in  the  hills  over  there— but 
—he  duss-sunt  know,  memsahib."  One  might  hope 
for  better  things  in  the  next  incarnation  of  the 
twice-born  Brahman  blockhead,  the  long-descended 
Aryan  decadent  and  degenerate— but  for  the  Mos- 
lem there  ought  to  be  all  that  the  wrath  of  the 
Prophet  has  promised  to  the  unworthy.  The  ex- 
asperation of  being  there,  of  having  eyes,  yet  almost 
seeing  not,  went  far  toward  quelling  any  deep  emo- 
tions and  dissipating  the  spell  of  the  place,  the  som- 
nolent calm,  the  soothing  peace,  the  atmosphere 
almost  as  of  Nirvana  which  brooded  there,  as  we  sat 
on  the  ancient  stones  and  looked  down  upon  the 
Place  of  Great  Intelligence,  the  Veranda  of  and  the 
veritable  Tree  of  Knowledge. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   SACRED   BO-TREE 

HE  broad  stoue  staircase  which  leads 
down  to  the  court  from  the  north 
commands  the  view  of  the  temple  and 
tree  which  uncounted  thousands  have 
drunk  in  with  ecstasy,  a  place  which 
has  resounded  for  centuries  with  prayers  and  chants ; 
for  Gautama  Buddha  said  in  his  lifetime:  "If  any 
one  look  with  a  pleasant  mind  at  a  dagoba,  or  at  the 
Court  of  the  Bo-tree,  he  will  undoubtedly  be  born  in 
a  dewa  loka,"  ^  a  pilgrimage  to  Buddha-Gaya  being 
therefore  a  certain  advance  toward  Nirvana.  Aside 
from  the  historic  and  religious  associations  of  this 
particular  bo-  or  pipul-tree,  the  Ficus  religiosa  has  a 
character  and  interest  quite  its  own,  the  effect  of 
its  symmetrical  growth  and  well-balanced  foliage 
masses,  heightened  by  the  continual  agitation  of  its 
brilliant,  dark-green  leaves.  Even  on  that  still  after- 
noon each  individual,  heart-shaped  leaf, with  its  long- 
drawn,  tapering  tendril  tip,  was  trembling  and  spin- 
ning on  its  slender  foot-stalk,  until  the  whole  tree 
mass  was  in  agitation — every   one   of  the  myriad 

1  Deica  loka  is  one  of  the  six  celestial  worlds  between 
earth  and  heaven. 

133 


134  WINTER   INDIA 

glossy,  green  leaves  flashing  with  a  separate  light  as 
these  thousands  of  perpetiially  moving  mirrors 
caught  the  sun.  The  restlessness  and  activity  of  these 
bo-leaves,  vibrating  and  striking  together  with  a  tin- 
kling noise  like  the  patter  of  soft  raindrops  on  still 
nights,  make  the  pipul  the  most  grateful  shade-tree, 
and  the  reflections  of  its  glossy  leaves  suggest  always 
the  first  stir  of  a  rising  breeze.  This  flashing,  spar- 
kling, flickering  play  of  light  all  over  the  tree  gives 
the  pipul  its  unique  and  individual  character — some- 
thing like  the  dazzling,  glittering  trees  that  one  sees 
in  pictures  by  imperfect  vitascope.  The  pipul  trem- 
bles to  this  day  in  reverence  for  the  one  who  became 
Buddha  beneath  its  branches,  and  as  symbol  of  the 
continual  change  and  motion,  the  impermanency  of 
the  world.  The  pipul  whispers  to  Rishaba,the  Hindus 
say,  every  word  it  hears,  for  wiiich  reason  it  is  never 
planted  in  the  bazaar  where  trade  must  employ  the 
lie.  Brahmans  claim  that  Brahma  planted  the  pipul- 
tree,  and  that  Vishnu,  who  in  his  ninth  avatar  became 
Buddha,  was  born  beneath  a  pipul-tree.  The  Hindu 
pilgrims,  who  come  in  such  thousands  every  year 
to  offer  unleavened  cakes  and  repeat  mantras  to 
this  tree  at  Buddha-Gaya,  before  worshiping  the 
print  of  Vishnu's  footsteps  at  Brahm-Gaya,  believe 
that  a  service  beneath  its  branches  will  relieve  their 
ancestors  for  one  hundred  generations  back. 

The  Bo-tree  was  always  worshiped,  swept  around, 
sprinkled  with  milk  and  perfumes,  and  hung  with 
offerings  in  the  Buddha's  lifetime,  and  he  taught, 
from  his  seat  beneath  it,  that  he  was  but  one  of  a 
series  of  Buddhas  who   appear  on  earth  as   faith 


THE   SACRED  BO-TREE  135 

wanes  and  the  world  needs  purification;  that  his 
religious  system  would  continue  for  five  thousand 
years  and  then  suffer  extinction,  when  all  relics, 
having  lost  honor  and  worshipers,  would  return  to 
the  foot  of  this  same  Bo-tree,  and  there,  assuming 
the  form  of  the  Buddha 's  body,  be  consumed  in  their 
own  refulgence,  as  in  a  flame.  Then  a  new  Buddha 
shall  come,  Maitreya  Buddha,  the  Buddha  of  Kind- 
ness, who  shall  redeem  the  world  by  love  and  again 
show  the  way  to  Nirvana. 

To  devout  Buddhists  the  Sacred  Bo-tree  is  the 
most  sacred  symbol  and  object  in  all  the  world,  the 
living  representative  of  Buddha  himself,  who  dis- 
tinctly enjoined  its  worship.  When  the  pilgrims, 
bringing  flowers  and  perfumes  and  offerings  to 
Sewet,  failed  to  find  him,  Ananda  suggested  that 
some  object  be  designated  for  them  to  worship  in 
his  absence,  and  Buddha  said:  *'  The  objects  that 
are  proper  to  receive  worship  are  of  three  kinds. 
.  .  .  In  the  last  division  is  the  tree  at  the  foot 
of  which  I  became  Buddha.  Therefore  send  to  ob- 
tain a  branch  of  that  tree  and  set  it  in  the  court  of 
this  vihara.  He  who  worships  it  will  receive  the 
same  reward  as  if  he  worshiped  me  in  person." 
When  requested  to  honor  this  tree  by  sitting  at  the 
foot  of  it,  Buddha  said  that  when  he  sat  under 
the  tree  at  Cay  a  he  became  Buddha,  and  that  "it 
was  not  meet  he  should  sit  in  the  same  manner  near 
any  other  tree." 

Buddhists  regard  the  Bo-tree  as  too  sacred  to  be 
touched  or  robbed  of  a  leaf,  and  devout  Burmese 
pilgrims  kneel,  fix  their  eyes  upon  it,  and  in  a  trance 


136  WINTER  INDIA 

of  prayer  wait  until  a  miraculous  leaf  detaches  itself 
and  flutters  down.  It  seemed  sacrilege  when  the 
Brahman  snapped  off  a  leaf  and  offered  it  to  me 
with  the  universal  Indian  gesture  of  the  begging 
palm,  and,  at  a  request  for  more,  snatched  off  a 
whole  handful  of  trembling  green  hearts,  as  ruth- 
lessly and  brainlessly  as  the  troop  of  monkeys  in 
the  bo-tree  at  Anuradhpura  had  done  a  few  weeks 
before. 

Despite  the  reverently  worded  mantra  with  which 
his  own  people  address  the  tree,  this  Brahman 
butcher,  responsive  to  a  single  rupee,  continued  to 
snatch  off  and  break  away  twig  after  twig  until  I 
had  a  great  green  bouquet  of  nearly  one  hundred 
living,  quivering  leaves  of  Buddhist  prayer.  With 
no  seeming  appreciation  of  the  sacrilege,  he  said : 
"  Some  people  are  satisfied  with  just  one  leaf.  They 
bow  to  it,  pray  to  it,  and  carry  it  away  in  a  gold 
box."  Then  he  set  himself  down  on  the  Vajrasana, 
the  Diamond  Throne,  the  Bodhi  Manda,  or  Veranda 
of  Knowledge,  to  yawn  and  scratch  his  lean  arms 
as  he  adjusted  his  drapery. 

Three  centuries  after  the  death  of  the  Buddha 
the  emperor  Asoka,  grandson  of  that  Asoka  who 
drove  the  Greeks  from  India  and  who  ruled  from 
Kabul  to  the  sea,  began  a  relentless  persecution  of 
Buddhists.  He  ordered  the  Sacred  Bo-tree  cut 
down  and  burned ;  but  when  two  trees  sprang  unin- 
jured from  the  flames  and  a  priest  emerged  un- 
harmed, the  "raging  Asoka"  was  humbled,  con- 
verted. He  built  a  wall  around  the  tree,  and  marked 
the  Great  Teacher's  seat  by  a  carved  stone  altar 


THE  SACRED  BU-TREE  137 

or  table— the  Vajrasana,  or  Diamond  Throne,  the 
reputed  center  of  the  universe,  the  jewel  that  came 
up  from  the  center  of  the  earth  to  mark  where 
Buddha  sat  when  he  attained  perfect  wisdom— 
Bodhi  Manda,  the  Veranda  of  Knowledge.  Asoka 
erected  a  small  brick  temple,  made  pilgrimages  to 
every  spot  connected  with  the  life  of  Buddha,  and 
marked  them  by  stupas,  or  inscribed  columns.  He 
summoned  the  Great  Council,  when  the  doctrines 
were  first  put  in  writing  in  the  square  Pali  charac- 
ters of  his  day;  he  sent  missionaries  to  all  parts  of 
the  world,  even  despatching  his  own  son  as  evangel- 
ist to  Ceylon,  and  making  his  daughter  bearer  of 
the  cutting  of  the  Sacred  Bo-tree  sent  to  Anuradh- 
pura, 

Asoka 's  wife  became  jealous  of  the  sacred  tree, 
and  tried  vainly  to  destroy  it;  persecuting  rajas 
cut  it  down  and  filled  the  roots  with  fire ;  but  it 
sprang  always  to  the  same  stature  again.  The  Chi- 
nese pilgrims  saw  and  described  it ;  the  first  English 
travelers  found  it  green  and  vigorous,  and  it  was 
perpetuated,  of  course,  like  its  congener  at  Anuradh- 
pura,  by  the  dropping  of  a  seed  in  the  fork  or  hol- 
low of  the  dying  trunk.  The  archaeologists  found  in 
1861  that  the  tree  was  growing  forty-five  feet  above 
the  original  level  of  the  court,  traces  of  sixteen  suc- 
cessive cement  platforms  showing  where  that  many 
trees  had  mounted  upon  the  roots  of  preceding  trees. 
That  venerable  pipul,  with  many  dead  branches  and 
stumps,  was  blown  over  in  1876,  and  the  stripling 
Bo-tree  flourishing  in  its  mold  was  carefully  re- 
planted at  the  level  of  the  earliest  tree,  and  the 


13S  WINTER  INDIA 

Diamond  Throne,  a  slab  of  polished  sandstone,  re- 
placed in  its  afternoon  shade.  There  were  unusual 
numbers  of  pilgrims  for  a  few  years,  and  the  pious 
Burmese  covered  the  stem  and  branches  with  so 
much  gold  leaf,  poured  so  much  milk,  perfumery, 
cologne,  oil,  incense,  tins  of  sardines,  European  food 
and  confections  around  its  roots,  that  it  began  to 
droop  and  die.  General  Cunningham  put  in  a  new 
tree  in  1885,  and  surrounded  it  by  a  brick  wall  inlaid 
with  old  carved  stones  around  the  window  openings 
on  each  side.  A  marble  table  or  altar  was  erected 
by  a  pious  Cingalese  to  receive  the  Burmese  and 
Hindu  offerings,  and  that  sturdy  tree  glitters  and 
grows  magnificently. 

There  was  no  building  of  any  kind  at  Mahabodhi 
in  the  Buddha's  lifetime,  nor  can  any  stone  or  in- 
scription be  traced  to  his  day.  The  First  Council 
met  in  the  great  sculptured  cave  on  the  hillside, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  Third  Council,  244  B.C.,  that 
Asoka  erected  a  temple.  Buddhism,  having  found 
its  Constantine  in  the  "sorrowless  Asoka,"  remained 
the  state  religion  throughout  the  great  empire. 

The  temple  became  a  treasury  of  relics  and  riches. 
The  window-frames  and  door-frames  of  gold  and 
silver  were  set  with  gems,  the  Diamond  Throne  was 
heaped  with  all  the  jewels  of  the  East,  and,  like  the 
Jeweled  Cloister,  was  literally  what  its  name  in- 
dicates. Archaeologists  are  not  all  agreed  whether 
the  present  temple  was  built  by  the  Scythian  con- 
querors in  the  second  century,  or  by  a  Brahman  in 
the  sixth  century.  Between  the  second  and  fourth 
centuries  the  priests  had  left  Mahabodhi,  and  Bud- 


THE  SACRED  BO-TREE  139 

dhism  was  at  such  an  ebb  that  Brahmans  seized  the 
temple,  cast  out  the  golden  image,  and  installed  their 
emblems  in  its  place.  "All  was  desolate  and  aban- 
doned" when  Fahien  arrived  from  China,  400  a.d.  ; 
but,  later,  Hiouen  Thsang  saw  and  minutely  de- 
scribed the  great  temple  which  stands  to-day  where 
stood  "the  chief  of  the  eighty- four  thousand  shrines 
erected  by  Dharma  Asoka,  ruler  of  the  earth  at  the 
close  of  the  two  hundred  and  eighteenth  year  of 
Buddha's  Nirvana,  upon  the  holy  spot  where  our 
Lord  tasted  the  milk  and  honey,"  as  the  inscribed 
stone  declares. 

In  all  the  romance  of  religion,  nothing  equals  the 
vicissitudes  and  alternating  fortunes  of  this  sacred 
place;  for,  soon  after  Hiouen  Thsang 's  visit,  Bud- 
dhism degenerated,  the  Brahmans  again  took  over 
the  sanctuary,  and  the  monastery  became  a  fort. 
In  the  sixteenth  century  of  Buddhism,  about  1000 
A.D.,  there  was  a  revival  and  a  reformation  of  the 
faith ;  the  temple  was  restored,  and  priests  gathered 
in  numbers.  Again  it  fell  away,  and  at  the  time 
of  the  Mohammedan  conquest  the  Buddhists  were 
persecuted  like  other  infidels,  and  the  ruins  of  their 
temples  and  monasteries  tell  how  hundreds  of  priests 
met  death  by  fire  and  sword  in  such  asylums.  In 
the  fourteenth  century  the  King  of  Burma  sent  an 
embassy  to  restore  the  temple,  when  a  few  Buddhist 
priests  were  found  in  the  lonely  place. 

Floods  came  and  left  their  sand  deposits  in  the 
court,  brick  and  plaster  crumbled,  the  jungle  crept 
upon  the  open  space,  trees  flourished  in  every  piece 
of  masonry,  and  Mahabodhi  was  without  a  history 


140  WINTER  INDIA 

until  a  Shivaite  mendicant  wandered  there  in  the 
first  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  the  mendi- 
cant Gautama  had  come  in  his  yellow  robe  so  long 
before.  He  lived  a  hermit  among  the  ruins,  attract- 
ing other  wanderers  until  he  had  a  sufficient  follow- 
ing to  build  a  monastery  by  the  river  bank.  Little 
heed  was  paid  these  pious  squatters,  but  as  their 
numbers  increased  the  chief  mahant  obtained  a 
firman  from  the  emperor  Shah  Alum,  confirming 
them  in  their  ownership  of  the  ground  they  had 
built  upon.  The  sacred  courtyard  was  the  quarry 
for  these  builders,  and  they  chose  the  most  accessible 
stones — frequently  those  that  were  carved  and  in- 
scribed. 

The  King  of  Burma  sent  missions  to  rebuild  and 
restore  the  temple  in  1805  and  in  1831,  and  one 
of  the  Shivaite  priests,  who  later  guided  Buchanan 
Hamilton  around  the  ruins,  claimed  to  have  been  con- 
verted by  the  Burmese  visitors,  and  from  their  books 
to  have  been  taught  the  history  of  each  monument 
within  the  sacred  court.  The  Archaeological  Survey 
made  examinations  and  excavations  at  Buddha-Gaya 
in  1861  and  1863,  found  the  true  level  of  the  old 
court,  and  brought  to  light  the  Diamond  Throne  and 
the  greater  part  of  Asoka's  rail. 

In  1877  another  mission  from  the  King  of  Burma 
obtained  the  consent  of  the  Bengal  government  and 
of  the  mahant  at  Buddha-Gaya  to  restore  the  tem- 
ple. AVord  reached  Calcutta  of  the  zeal  with  which 
these  Burmese  were  razing  and  obliterating  old 
structures  and  monuments,  and  Dr.  Mitra  was  sent 
to  investigate ;  but  the  wreck  and  transformation  of 


THE  SACRED  BO-TREE  141 

the  temple  court  had  gone  too  far  for  any  interfer- 
ence to  avail.  The  Burmese  had  demolished  gate- 
ways, pavilions,  and  monuments,  leveled  ruin-heaps, 
swept  away  terraces  and  votive  stupas,  used  carved 
stones  for  foundations  or  minor  constructions;  or, 
casting  them  recklessly  on  different  rubbish-heaps, 
made  it  impossible  to  identify  what  Hiouen  Thsang 
had  so  carefully  described. 

In  1879  General  Cunningham,  chief  of  the  Ar- 
chieological  Survey,  cleared  out  the  entire  temple 
court  of  the  sand  and  rubbish  of  ages,  completely 
restored  the  temple  within  and  without,  and  rebuilt 
the  portico  over  the  east  entrance  door  and  the  four 
corner  pavilions.  A  miniature  stone  temple  found 
in  excavating,  and  repeated  in  bas-reliefs  and 
Buddhist  sculptures  everywhere  from  Amraoti  to 
Gandhara,  and  at  many  places  in  Burma,  gave  the 
model  for  the  restorations.  Every  measurement  now 
corresponds  precisely  to  the  Chinese  priest 's  account, 
and  the  temple  lacks  only  the  hundreds  of  gilded 
images  in  the  tiers  of  niches  that  mount  to  the  gilded 
amalika  at  the  summit.  The  temple  stands  exactly 
over  the  site  of  Asoka's  temple,  and  the  original 
floor  and  altar  are  uncovered.  A  ball  of  clay  in  an 
altar  niche  contained  a  rich  treasure — bits  of  gold 
leaf  and  beaten  gold  in  the  form  of  flowers  and 
stars,  pearls,  rough  sapphires  and  rubies,  bits  of 
beryl,  jade,  agate,  and  crystal.  Even  the  plaster 
of  this  altar  was  composed  of  pounded  coral,  pearl, 
ivory,  and  precious  stones  mixed  with  lime.  A 
similar  treasure  was  found  in  a  vase  beneath  the  im- 
age niched  in  the  outer  temple  wall;  and  all  these 


142  WINTER  INDIA 

relics  are  now  to  be  seen  in  the  India  Museum  at 
Calcutta,  together  with  tablets  bearing  Chinese  in- 
scriptions and  scores  of  terra-cotta  lamps,  seals,  and 
votive  tablets  molded  within  the  outlines  of  a  bo- 
leaf. 

Of  the  Jeweled  Cloister— that  long  pavilion  cov- 
ering the  path  where  Buddha  paced  to  and  fro  and 
flowers  sprang  up  as  he  trod,  whose  carved  columns 
were  hung  with  garlands  of  flowers  and  strings  of 
jewels  and  half  incased  in  silver  and  gold— only 
fragments  remain  to  ],nark  the  position  and  extent. 
Asoka's  carved  sandstone  rail,  "the  oldest  sculp- 
tured monument  in  India,"  has  been  carefully  re- 
placed, as  far  as  possible,  and  in  long  stretches 
shows  us  that  curious  carpenter's  arrangement  of 
mortised  posts  and  rails  and  carved  rosette  orna- 
ments over  each  joint  and  cross-piece.  The  great 
pillars  and  cross-beams  of  the  toran  gateway,  precur- 
sor of  the  Chinese  pailow  and  the  Japanese  torii, 
have  been  raised  before  the  entrance,  but  too  much 
of  it  is  missing  to  tell  whether  it  was  as  splendid 
and  monumental  as  the  toran  of  Sanchi  which  Asoka 
later  began  erecting.  Twenty  posts  and  many  ro- 
settes of  the  carved  rail  had  been  built  into  the  walls 
and  courts  of  the  mahants'  college,  and  no  amount 
of  persuasion  could  induce  the  heathens  to  restore 
them  to  the  temple  court. 

All  about  the  Bo-tree,  the  Diamond  Throne,  the 
Cloister,  and  the  temple  doorway,  the  stones  were 
daubed  with  gold-leaf  and  ocher.  The  Brahman 
guide  was  just  able  to  tell  that  these  yellow  smears 
were  the  offerings  of  pious  Burmese,  but  to  any 


THE   SACRED  BO-TREE  145 

further  qiiostions  concerning  the  Burmese  and  their 
intermittent  gilding  the  Bralmian  returned  a  dumb 
stare.  He  led  us  up  into  the  temple,  through  an 
archway  in  a  wall  twenty  feet  thick,  to  a  square 
whitewashed  cell,  and  up  to  a  second  chilly,  white 
vault  where  the  light  fell  through  a  triangular  east 
window  full  upon  the  image  on  the  carved  basalt 
altar.  It  was  a  tawdry,  gilded  image,  more  asleep 
than  serenely  meditating,  with  a  Hindu  caste-mark 
on  its  brow— "Buddha's  mother!"  said  the  Brah- 
man, For  further  shock  and  disillusionment,  it  was 
only  necessary  to  note  that  the  image  was  attired 
in  a  red  merino  petticoat  and  a  tinsel-bordered  cape 
—"to  keep  the  image  warm,"  said  the  Brahman, 
winding  his  grimy  sheet  more  closely  around  him 
in  that  chill  sanctuary.  There  was  a  litter  of  food 
and  flower,  incense  and  candle  offerings  on  the  altar 
in  true  Burmese  fashion,  scores  of  Tibetan  flags  and 
streamers  in  the  corners  of  the  room,  while  old  Bud- 
dhist bas-reliefs  built  into  the  wall  were  buttered 
and  garlanded  in  the  Hindu  manner — a  medley  of 
religions  in  the  one  shrine.  It  was  hard  to  believe 
that  this  untidy  vault,  this  religious  lumber-room, 
was  the  supreme  shrine,  the  ark,  the  tabernacle,  the 
lioly  of  holies.  It  was  harder  to  realize  that  the 
stone  image,  the  shabby  old  "Buddha's  mother," 
all  daubed  with  gold-leaf,  successor  to  innumerable 
images  of  gold,  perfumed  paste,  basalt,  sandstone, 
and  stucco— this  clumsy  image,  with  its  stolid,  va- 
cant face,  was  intended  for  the  same  beautiful,  pas- 
sionless Teacher  who  meditates,  steeped  in  the  peace 
of  eternal  Nirvana,  in  the  gilded  temples  of  Japan 
or  beneath  Kamakura's  pine-trees. 


146  WINTER  INDIA 

The  Brahman  had  little  interest  in  the  big  Bur- 
mese bells  by  the  temple  door,  in  the  venerable  stat- 
ues, or  in  the  sacred  sites.  Whether  this  place  was 
the  cloistered  flower-tank  or  the  lotus-pond,  or  only 
where  Buddha  washed  his  robe  or  his  bowl,  he  cared 
not;  but  he  showed  us  insistently  the  cylindrical 
monument  to  the  first  mahant  of  the  Shivaite  mon- 
astery, who  there  performed  the  great  penance,  or 
rather  feat,  of  "the  five  fires."  To  attain  great 
spiritual  reward,  this  sacred  salamander  sat  be- 
tween four  fires,  with  the  midsummer  sun  overhead, 
and  survived  to  enjoy  the  expected  sanctity.  An- 
other monument  marked  where  one  of  the  fraternity 
had  been  devoured  by  a  tiger  while  at  prayer,  and 
the  Brahman  could  not  understand  our  affected  de- 
pression when  he  had  assured  us  and  reassured  us 
that  the  tigers  did  not  come  to  the  courtyard  now— 
"not  eat  the  priests  any  more,  surely,  truly,  mem- 
sahib.    Be  not  uneasy." 

The  Brahman  boasted  of  the  number  of  pilgrims 
who  came  to  Buddha-Gaya— "from  everywhere!— 
from  Colombo,  Rangoon,  Tibet-ty,  China,  Japan ! — 
oh,  from  everywhere!  Now  is  there  a  Japanese 
over  there  at  the  palace,"  pointing  toward  the  mon- 
astery by  the  river  bank.  He  led  us  to  the  mahants ' 
college,  and  through  a  labyrinth  of  stone  courts, 
where  scores  of  Shivaite  priests  lounged  and  loafed 
over  their  bowls  and  messes  of  food,  and  across  a  gar- 
den full  of  little  Burmese  pagodas,  to  the  rest-house 
built  for  resting  Burmese  by  King  Mindon  Min.  The 
Brahman  routed  out  a  languid  creature  in  loose 
garments  with  yards  of  a  pale  pink  sarong  wobbling 


THE  SACRED  BO-TREE  147 

between  his  knees,  a  short  white  jacket  fastened 
closely  at  the  neck,  and  a  topknot  of  hair  under  a 
cap.     A  queer-looking  Japanese,  surely. 

' '  Where  are  you  from  ? "  we  asked. 

'* Rangoon!"  drawled  the  ghostly  Maung  Some- 
body, and  when  we  protested  to  the  Brahman  that 
he  had  deceived  us  with  a  mere  every-day,  near-by 
Burmese,  he  said:  "Oh!  Burmese,  Japanese,  just 
the  same.  Their  country  is  a  long  way  off,  but  they 
all  come  to  Buddha-Gaya." 

The  shadows  were  lengthening  and  palms  and  pi- 
puls  were  rustling  in  the  afternoon  wind,  but  even 
after  hours  spent  in  Mahabodhi  there  was  something 
wanting,  something  inharmonious  in  one's  general 
impression.  The  temple  was  too  well  preserved,  and 
proclaimed  too  loudly  the  plumb-line  and  the  trow- 
el's work.  Sentiment  and  day-dreams  could  not 
play  upon  those  precise  angles  and  sharp  edges. 
And  the  Tree  of  Knowledge !  as  trim,  compact  and 
shapely  as  a  California  orange-tree,  with  squawking 
parrots  flashing  in  and  out  of  its  flickering  foliage, 
as  if  it  were  but  a  common  tree  for  birds  to  perch 
upon !  There  was  too  much  of  shock  and  disillusion- 
ment at  Mahabodhi ;  too  much  of  the  garish  every 
day;  a  lack  of  romance  and  mystery,  and  of  any 
real  sense  of  antiquity  and  of  chance  for  imagi- 
nation. 

We  drove  back  with  our  treasure  of  sacred  leaves, 
and  saw  the  busy  bazaars  of  Gaya  before  a  salmon 
and  saffron  sunset  of  blinding  glory  held  us  at  the 
dak  bangla's  gate,  while  the  blind  beggar  wailed  by 
the  roadside,  the  women  went  to  and  fro  with  their 


148  WINTER  INDIA 

water- jars,  the  parrakeets  flew  shrieking  among  the 
tamarind-trees  before  they  settled  for  the  night,  and 
our  lank  Moslem  knelt  and  bent  to  the  ground  in 
repeated  prayers  to  the  Mecca  beyond  the  sunset. 

When  we  went  to  the  midnight  train  that  was  to 
take  us  away,  a  raja  and  his  suite  were  just  arriving 
from  Bankipur.  There  was  hurry  and  excitement, 
a  rushing  to  and  fro  of  richly  dressed  attendants, 
and  much  glitter  and  splendor  and  flash  of  color, 
as  the  torch-bearers  led  the  raja  in  his  jeweled  tur- 
ban to  the  loAV  dhoolie  suspended  from  a  curved 
silver  yoke,  and,  lifting  it,  bore  him  out  into  the 
night.  The  voices  of  his  followers  died  away  as  the 
flicker  of  the  torches  was  finally  lost  down  the  road, 
but  the  last  impression  of  Gay  a  was  of  that  raja 
sitting  cross-legged,  like  a  god,  in  his  silver  and  vel- 
vet car,  departing  by  torch-light  to  some  palace, 
whence  he  would  issue  before  sunrise  to  bathe  in  the 
Phalgu,  to  worship  the  Bo-tree  and  the  Vishnupad — 
all  living  traces  of  the  great  religion  obliterated, 
like  Gautama's  own  footprints  in  that  dusty  road; 
the  Light  of  Asia  forever  extinguished  on  the  spot 
where  it  first  rose  upon  the  world;  the  great  temple 
and  the  Sacred  Bo-tree  drowsing,  neglected,  in  the 
sunshine  of  an  empty,  lifeless  court;  the  temple  of 
a  sleeping  Buddha,  of  a  dead  religion,  everything 
turned  to  stone,  when  there  have  passed  but  half  of 
those  five  thousand  years  that  the  Master  declared 
his  religion  would  endure,  an  annihilation  greater 
and  more  complete  than  Nirvana  already  come  to 
the  faith  in  its  birthplace. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   GREATEST   SIGHT    IN    THE   WORLD 

|T  Mogul  Sarai  junction,  three  Eng- 
lishmen stood  over  as  many  hillocks  of 
leather-  and  tin-covered  luggage,  direct- 
ing its  removal  to  the  Benares  train. 
The  servants  bore  it  off  and  flung  it 
through  doors  and  windows,  covering  the  floor,  heap- 
ing the  seats,  filling  all  the  racks  and  hooks,  until 
the  owners  themselves,  looking  in,  said:  "Oh,  I 
say,  now.  There  is  no  room  left  for  us.  We  had 
best  sit  in  this  next  carriage,  where  we  can  watch 
them."  When  I  spoke  of  this  dilemma  of  the  men 
and  their  luggage  to  others  of  their  nationality, 
they  said  bewilderedly :  ' '  For  the  life  of  me,  I  do 
not  see  why  you  Americans  should  laugh  at  that. 
I  thought  you  always  traveled  with  so  much  luggage. 
Those  enormous  trunks— Saratogas,  you  call  them." 
It  argued  nothing  to  them,  no  matter  how  much  we 
explained  it,  that  we  sent  the  Saratogas  to  the  bag- 
gage-car and  never  sat  with  malodorous  sole-leather 
heaped  around  us  in  our  richly  finished  and  fur- 
nished cars. 

We  crossed  a  muddy  river  by  a  high  bridge  with 
fortress  turrets  at  either  end— the  very  bridge  of 
"Voices  in  the  Night"— and  were  then  in  the  usual 

149 


150  WINTER  INDIA 

glaring,  sun-baked  European  suburb,  wliere  broad 
roads  and  waste  spaces,  new  houses  in  large  grounds, 
and  dusty  lines  of  banian-trees  certainly  did  not  go 
to  make  up  the  Benares  of  one's  dreams.  The  hotel 
was  more  like  the  hotels  of  Java,  the  dining-room  in 
a  central  building  by  itself,  and  long  rows  of  bed- 
rooms in  adjacent  buildings.  Peddlers,  guides,  jug- 
glers, and  snake-charmers  haunted  the  long,  flagged 
porches  all  the  afternoon.  Cobras  were  drawn  out 
from  small,  round  baskets  like  so  many  yards  of  sau- 
sage, and  made  to  dance  on  their  tails  to  plaintive 
pipings,  and  then  crowded  back  into  their  baskets 
with  as  little  ceremony ;  and  a  weary  little  mongoose 
was  shaken  and  cuffed  and  made  to  battle  with  the 
hooded  horror. 

Chaturgam  Lai,  in  a  flowered  and  cotton-wadded 
chintz  overcoat,  a  w^orsted  comforter  around  his 
neck,  large  spectacles  under  a  fat  turban,  the  caste- 
mark  freshly  painted  on  his  brow,  and  an  unctuous 
smile  set  for  the  day,  rapped  on  our  door  long 
before  dawn.  We  looked  out  to  see  a  long  line  of 
sleeping  bearers  on  the  brick-floored  portico,  each 
before  his  master 's  door,  every  turban-topped  bundle 
rolled  in  a  stripped  dhurrie  with  a  pair  of  bare 
brown  legs  protruding.  The  air  was  keen  and  frosty, 
and  I  wondered  if  any  estate  on  earth,  any  future 
reincarnation,  could  be  more  replete  with  bodily 
misery  and  discomfort  than  the  regular  life  of  an 
Indian  bearer  or  traveling  servant— sleeping  on  cold 
stone  porches,  snatching  bits  of  food  at  irregular 
hours,  traveling  all  day  and  all  night,  and  as  often 
standing  for  hours  in  the  crowded  compartments. 


THE  GREATEST  SIGHT  IN  THE  WORLD       153 

The  greatest  human  spectacle  in  India,  the  chief 
incident  and  motive  of  Benares  life,  and  the  most 
extraordinary  manifestation  of  religious  zeal  and 
superstition  in  all  the  world,  begins  at  sunrise  by  the 
Ganges  bank  and  lasts  for  several  hours.  We  started 
in  the  first  gray  light  of  the  dawn,  drove  two  miles 
across  the  city,  and,  descending  the  ghats,  or  broad 
staircases,  to  the  water's  edge,  were  rowed  slowly 
up  and  down  the  three-mile  crescent  of  river-front, 
watching  Brahmans  and  humbler  believers  bathe 
and  pray  to  the  rising  sun,  repeating  the  oldest  Ve- 
dic  hymns.  That  picturesque  sweep  of  the  city  front 
—a  high  cliff  with  palaces,  temples,  and  gardens 
clinging  to  its  terraced  embankments  and  long 
flights  of  steps  descending  to  the  water— is  spectacle 
enough  when  lighted  by  the  first  yellow  flash  of 
sunlight,  without  the  thousands  of  white-clad  wor- 
shipers at  the  Ganges  brink  and  far  out  in  its  tur- 
bid flood.  After  three  sunrise  visits  to  the  river 
bank,  the  spectacle  was  as  amazing  and  incompre- 
hensible as  at  first,  as  incredible,  as  dreamlike,  as  the 
afternoon  memory  of  it.  I  saw  it  with  equal  surprise 
each  time,  the  key-note,  the  soul  of  India  revealed  in 
Benares  as  nowhere  else,— since  all  India  flocks  to 
Benares  in  sickness  and  health,  in  trouble  and  re- 
joicing, to  pray  and  to  commit  crimes,  the  sacred 
city  being  the  meeting-place  and  hiding-place  of  all 
criminals,  the  hatching-place  of  all  conspiracies. 

We  sped  through  empty  cantonment  streets,  but 
in  the  native  city  every  thoroughfare  was  crowded. 
All  were  streaming  one  way,  and  a  hum  of  voices 
filled  the  air  as  we  reached  the  ghats  and  came  upon 


154  WINTER  INDIA 

sight  of  the  multitude  standing  waist-deep  in  the 
sacred  stream  or  crouching  on  platforms  built  out 
over  the  water.  From  twenty-five  to  fifty  thousand 
people  regularly — on  special  occasions  one  hun- 
dred thousand  bathers  and  worshipers,  Brahmans 
and  believers  of  every  caste— perform  their  daily 
rites  in  the  Ganges,  They  are  so  rapt,  ecstatic,  bent 
on  and  absorbed  in  the  mechanical  formula,  the 
endless  minutiee  of  their  worship,  that  they  are 
unconscious  of  the  few  curious  strangers  who  may 
drift  up  and  down  the  river-front  in  the  brief  tour- 
ist season.  A  Brahman  cannot  let  eye  or  mind  wan- 
der for  one  moment  lest,  omitting  something,  or 
changing  the  order  of  invocation,  prayers,  and  move- 
ments, he  should  have  to  begin  the  long  ritual  afresh. 
The  daily  religious  observances  should  occupy  nearly 
twelve  hours,  so  that  a  repetition  is  something  of  a 
penance. 

The  lowlands  across  the  river  were  veiled  in  haze 
as,  seated  in  our  comfortable  arm-chairs  on  the  boat's 
deck,  we  floated  olf  into  the  stream.  Just  as  the 
sun's  disk  rose  above  the  hazy,  blue  plain,  a  louder 
murmur  arose,  a  general  chant,  the  measured  re- 
sponses of  a  great  congregation.  Each  one  stand- 
ing in  the  stream  lifted  up  an  offering  of  water, 
tossed  a  handful  three  times  in  the  air,  dipped 
the  body  beneath  the  surface,  repeating  the  while 
the  sacred  mantras,  the  ancient  Vedic  hymns,  the 
names  of  the  gods,  and  the  sacred  syllable  "Om." 
They  sipped  handfuls  of  the  holy  water,  rinsed 
their  mouths,  lifted  the  water  and  let  it  stream 
through  their  fingers  or  pour  back  down  the  arm, 


THE  GREATEST  SIGHT  IN  THE   WORLD       155 

facing  always  to  the  (>ast,  and  moving  their  lips 
in  prayer.  They  tilled  their  water-jars  and  poured 
it  over  their  heads,  and  they  drank  it  "to  purify 
themselves,"  our  mentor  said,  although  one  group 
of  purity-seekers  stood  two  feet  from  the  mouth 
of  a  rapidly  discharging  sewer,  every  sort  of  city 
filth  floating  to  their  hands  and  water-jars,  the 
bodies  of  men  and  animals  and  decaying  flowers 
floating  by.  They  drank  the  pestilent  fluid,  they 
carried  it  home  for  household  use,  and  bottles  were 
being  filled  to  be  sent  and  carried  to  the  remotest 
parts  of  India.  Western  education  and  sanitary 
science  avail  nothing  against  the  Ganges  supersti- 
tion. The  British  have  provided  a  pure  water  sup- 
ply for  Benares,  but  the  people  prefer  the  sacred 
dilution  of  sewerage  and  cremation-ground  refuse, 
thus  inviting  and  encouraging  every  disease. 

Whole  platforms  of  Brahmans  went  through  their 
morning  ceremonies  before  us  as  if  on  a  theater 
stage.  Some  sat  with  fixed  or  upraised  eyes,  some 
with  eyes  closed— all  absorbed,  as  if  in  hypnotic 
trance,  slowly  whispering  and  muttering  their 
prayers,  lost  in  contemplation  of  their  fingers,  sym- 
bols of  difllerent  gods,  dipping  each  one  in  the  river 
many  times  and  praying  to  it  fervently  as  the  water 
trickled  off.  They  dipped  wisps  of  grass  in  the 
river  and  contemplated  them  prayerfully,  meditat- 
ing on  the  one  hundred  and  eight  manifestations 
of  Shiva,  the  ten  hundred  and  eight  manifestations 
of  Vishnu.  They  emptied  their  jars  by  rule;  they 
prayed,  touching  their  arms,  breasts,  knees  in  slow 
callisthenics  as  they  vowed  themselves  to  one  and  an- 

9 


156  WINTER  INDIA 

other  of  the  pantheon ;  they  produced  boxes  of  ashes 
of  sacred  cow-dung  and  painted  their  foreheads 
and  smeared  their  arms  and  breasts  for  the  day. 
Others,  standing  in  the  stream,  drew  in  deep  breaths, 
closed  first  one  nostril,  then  the  other,  and  then  held 
both  nostrils  with  the  fingers  for  uncounted  seconds. 
"They  hold  the  nose  so.  It  is  a  prayer.  It  is  a 
ceremony,"  said  Chaturgam  Lai,  beaming  with 
proud  omniscience.  "Sometimes  they  pray  with  the 
right  nose,  sometimes  with  the  left  nose. ' ' 

There  were  some  serious  and  thorough  ablutions 
going  on  also,  vigorous  scrubbings  and  tubbings  that 
were  good  imitations  of  the  Anglo-Indian  form  of 
godliness.  Men  waded  out  to  their  shoulders,  re- 
moved their  garments,  and  washed  them  in  the  holy 
water,  assuming  dry  garments  as  they  dropped  the 
wet  ones  at  the  steps.  Others  energetically  sham- 
pooed their  heads  with  river  mud,  for  soap  is  im- 
pure to  their  notion.  Women  came  down  to  the 
river's  edge,  scoured  their  brass  jars,  rinsed,  filled 
them,  and  walked  away  in  never-ending  processions 
upon  the  broad  steps.  Even  babus  in  gold  specta- 
cles and  worsted  comforters  carried  off  jars  of  water 
to  pour  over  some  chosen  image.  The  high-caste 
women  had  bathed  and  gone  before  sunrise,  the 
wives  of  rajas  and  potentates  rowed  off  in  cur- 
tained boats  to  bathe  and  pray  far  from  the  com- 
mon horde.  The  women  specially  congregate  at  one 
ghat,  barely  uncovering  their  faces  to  the  rising 
sun,  and  gracefully  and  ingeniously  draping  the 
fresh  sari  over  the  wet  one  as  they  reach  the  steps 
again.     "These  are  nearly  all   widows,"  said  our 


THE  GREATEST   SIGHT   IN  THE  WORLD       157 

guide,  condescendingly;  and  certainly  no  people  in 
the  world  have  more  need  to  implore  divine  aid 
than  these  Indian  widows,  accursed  things  who,  as 
they  themselves  and  all  others  believe,  have  brought 
the  calamity  of  death  upon  their  husbands. 

And  then  there  were  the  fakirs;  the  real  things 
of  one's  Sunday-school  books,  ragged,  unkempt,  ash- 
smeared  objects  that  seemed  hardly  human,  sitting 
rigid  in  their  insane,  consequential  sanctity.  Some 
were  so  utterly  absurd  and  ridiculous  with  their 
fantastic  ash  powderings,  that  the  young  American 
boy  on  our  boat  vented  peal  after  peal  of  laughter 
that  continued  to  tears  as  one  ash-heap,  crouched 
like  Humpty  Dumpty  on  a  sunny  wall,  mouthed  and 
gibbered  back  at  him  spitefully.  There  were  lean 
old  fakirs,  mere  wrinkles  of  skin  laid  loosely  over 
some  bones,  and  strapping  young  fakirs,  whom  the 
police  should  move  on  or  put  to  road-making.  One 
able-bodied  specimen  of  lazy  holiness  sat  with 
clenched  hand  and  uplifted  arm,  wearing  the  most 
consciously  self-righteous  air;  another  posed  like  a 
dirty  salt  image  on  a  broken  stone  pedestal  at  a  cor- 
ner of  the  ghat ;  and  a  row  of  toothless  old  relics  sat 
in  their  dirt  and  ashes  waiting  for  certain  Brahman 
princes  to  come  along,  as  in  a  stage  tableau,  and 
distribute  daily  alms  of  rice— "to  acquire  merit." 
Each  whining,  mumbling  old  fakir  held  out  his 
hands,  his  begging-bowl,  or  a  dirty  end  of  rag  dra- 
pery, the  almoner  doled  out  a  few  spoonfuls  of  cheap 
rice,  and  the  rich  man  moved  on  to  a  chorus  of  bless- 
ings, conspicuously  well  pleased  with  himself  and 
the  increased  assets  of  acquired  merit — precisely  the 


158  WINTER  INDIA 

Pharisee  of  Judea.  There  are  more  than  two  mil- 
lion fakirs  in  India,  all  leading  lives  of  leisure  and 
comparative  plent}^;  but  the  prize  fakir  of  them 
all  on  the  Ganges  bank  was  surely  the  well-fed  and 
plumped  out  one  who  had  all  his  bones  painted  in 
white  outline  on  his  brown  skin,  and  sat  comfort- 
ably in  the  sun,  waiting  for  his  breakfast  to  come  to 
him — a  living  skeleton  of  the  impressionist  school. 
There  was  finally  a  dead  fakir,  propped  up  against  a 
wall,  covered  with  flower  garlands,  and  soon  to  be 
richly  spiced  and  committed  to  the  Ganges,  since 
fire  is  not  needed  to  purify  such  holy  men. 

At  sunrise  the  ghouls  of  the  cremation-ground 
or  burning-ghat  began  heaping  funeral  piles  for  the 
day's  work,  and  others  of  this  lowest  caste  were 
carrying  yesterday's  ashes  to  the  water's  edge, 
washing  them  in  sieves  and  pans  like  any  placer- 
miner  to  recover  the  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  burned 
with  the  bodies.  The  domri,  who  conduct  crema- 
tions, surpass  the  Occidental  undertakers  in  their  ex- 
tortionate charges— for  firewood,  oil,  and  the  flam- 
ing brand  for  starting  the  blaze.  Shrouded  and 
flower-decked  bodies,  lashed  to  litters  of  poles,  were 
borne  down  the  steps  and  laid  at  the  water's  edge, 
the  feet  resting  in  the  sacred  river  while  the  pyre 
was  made  ready  and  the  relatives  paid  the  domri 
and  paid  for  prayers  by  the  "Sons  of  the  Ganges"— 
a  legion  of  fat  priests  shouting  under  great  umbrel- 
las—brigand Brahmans  of  the  river  bank,  no  less 
mercenary  and  rapacious  than  the  outcast  domri, 
A  dead  woman  shrouded  in  white  and  roped  over 
with  marigold  chains  was  laid  whore  the  foul  waters 


THE   GREATEST   SIGHT   IN   THE   WORLD        161 

could  lave  the  feet,  a  sewer  arch  discharging  but 
a  yard  away,  and  the  evil  doniri  panning  out  their 
treasure  close  by.  When  the  pyre  was  ready,  the 
body  was  completely  immersed  for  a  moment,  car- 
ried up  and  laid  on  the  fagots,  and  a  sobbing,  fright- 
ened little  boy,  his  tunic  wet  in  Ganges  water,  laid 
sandalwood  and  spices  on  his  mother's  body,  ran 
five  times  around  the  pile  as  priests  and  relatives 
pushed  and  pulled  him  through  his  part,  and, 
touching  the  torch  to  the  oil-drenched  fagots,  ran 
shrieking  to  a  servant's  arms.  The  flames  leaped 
and  crackled,  jets  of  thick  smoke  curled  around, 
the  fire  lapped  over  the  edges  of  the  grave-clothes, 
and  smoke  mercifully  concealed  the  rest.  The  domri 
stood  by  with  long  irons  arranging  the  fire,  adding 
wood  and  oil,  while  the  family  group  waited  there 
until  all  should  be  consumed.  A  prisoner's  body 
from  the  jail  was  laid  by  the  sewer's  mouth,  and  in- 
stead of  being  burned  in  the  later,  cheaper  hours  of 
the  afternoon,  was  to  be  cremated  at  once  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  rich  Brahman,  who  waited  to  commit  the 
ashes  to  the  river  and  thereby  ''acquire  merit." 

At  the  near-by  ghat  a  boy's  body  had  been  laid  on 
the  lowest  step,  and  without  cover  or  shroud,  clothed 
as  in  life,  his  relatives  wailed  and  dashed  Ganges 
water  over  him.  He  had  probably  died  within  the 
hour.  He  might  even  have  been  gasping  as  they  hur- 
ried him  through  the  streets  to  be  burned  and  com- 
mitted to  the  Ganges  before  noon.  The  body  was 
not  yet  rigid  as  the  relatives  poured  and  sprinkled 
water  over  the  graceful  young  statue,  wrapped  it  in 
a   Ganges-soaked   sheet,   fastened    it  to  a  litter  of 


162  WINTER  INDIA 

boughs,  and  bore  it  off  to  the  burning-ghat.  The 
group  of  women  remained  behind,  and  standing  in 
a  circle  facing  inward,  wailed  and  tossed  their  arms. 
Some  were  dry-eyed  and  watched  us  while  they 
wailed  and  beat  their  breasts,  but  the  mother  was 
unmistakable  in  the  group — her  cries  and  gestures 
in  pathetic  contrast  to  those  of  the  others. 

When  we  had  twice  gone  the  length  of  the  ghats, 
drifting  down  to  the  railroad  bridge  and  rowing 
back  to  the  upper  ghats,  reviewing  seven  miles 
of  bathing,  praying,  misguided  people,  we  landed 
where  the  crowds  were  thickest,  the  din  loudest. 
The  well  filled  with  Vishnu's  perspiration,  and  in 
which  Devi  dropped  her  ear-jewel,  and  the  stone  foot- 
print of  Vishnu  make  this  spot  the  center  of  busiest 
religious  life  on  the  river  bank.  There  priests  and 
people  swarmed  thickest,  all  bellowing  the  history  of 
the  pool  in  one's  ears;  and  the  sick  and  the  well,  the 
diseased  and  the  robust,  crowded  the  inclosing  steps 
of  this  tank  of  filth,  an  abominable  ooze  of  Ganges 
slime,  decaying  flowers,  spices,  sweetmeats,  butter, 
and  milk.  They  sipped  and  drank  this  liquid  death, 
and  we  hastened  from  the  noisy  crowd  of  priests, 
pilgrims,  fakirs,  beggars,  Brahmans,  jugglers,  snake- 
charmers,  money-changers,  and  idlers  with  sacred 
cows  wearing  bead  and  flower  necklaces,  pushing 
their  way  when  it  was  not  obsequiously  cleared  for 
them. 

Processions  of  people  carrying  water  to  their 
homes  and  the  temples,  and  spilling  it  as  they  went, 
made  walking  dangerously  slippery,  and  we  barely 
looked  into  the  court  of  the  Golden  Temple,  where 


THE  GREATEST   SIGHT  IN  THE   WORLD       163 

worshipers  crowded  to  jangle  the  bells,  sprinkle 
grease,  and  garland  the  images.  The  courtyard  of 
the  Well  of  Knowledge,  in  which  Shiva  resides,  was 
so  offensive  that  we  had  no  wish  to  approach  the 
curb  and  see  the  pit  of  decaying  food,  flowers,  in- 
cense, milk,  and  butter.  We  took  a  peep  at  the 
Temple  of  the  Stick,  where  sugar  dogs  are  the  ac- 
ceptable offering,  and  a  greedy  Brahman  whips  re- 
pentent  sinners  and  then  grants  them  absolution  and 
indulgence— whips  them  with  peacock  feathers — 
even  gives  the  unbeliever  a  swish  of  the  feathers 
for  two  annas  and  laughs  with  him  at  the  deluded 
divinity  he  serves ! 

It  was  then  ten  o'clock,  and  after  four  hours  in 
the  headquarters  of  heathendom  we  were  glad  to 
return  to  the  quiet,  empty  spaces  of  the  cantonment, 
realizing  more  than  before  what  an  appalling  task 
confronts  the  missionaries,  and  what  generations  of 
such  blindly  bigoted  Ganges  worshipers  must  pass 
away  before  any  change  can  be  hoped  for.  A  cen- 
tury of  British  law,  order,  cleanliness,  and  sanitary 
improvement  avails  nothing  against  the  superstitions 
and  practices  of  twenty-five  centuries.  Yet  in  this 
same  center  of  bigotry  and  superstition  Gautama 
Buddha  won  the  people  from  their  idolatry,  their 
superstitions  and  caste  creed,  and  for  eight  hundred 
years  his  doctrines  prevailed.  With  this  precedent, 
the  ultimate  conversion  of  the  Hindus  need  not  be 
despaired  of.  We  drove  out  that  afternoon  by  a 
dusty,  tamarind-shaded  road  to  Sarnath,  the  Deer 
Park  of  Benares,  where  the  Buddha  preached,  de- 
fied the  Brahmans,  and  built  up  his  great  following. 


164  WINTER   INDIA 

Only  a  few  ruins  remain  of  the  great  group  of  build- 
ings, the  crumbling  tope  in  a  deserted  common  the 
only  object  above  ground  described  by  Fahien  and 
Hiouen  Thsang.  "Did  Sarnath  pay?"  asked  my 
table  d'hote  neighbor  that  night,  and  I  stammered 
for  an  answer.  "Because,"  she  said,  "they  told 
us  there  was  nothing  to  see,  that  it  would  n't  pay 
us  to  drive  out  there  just  to  see  some  rubbishy  old 
stones  and  brick  heaps. ' ' 


CHAPTER   XII 


BENARES 


)iT  did  not  seem  possible  that  the  Ganges 
I  banks  could  ever  show  such  another  sight ; 
yet  a  second  and  a  third  morning  we 
rose  by  starlight,  drove  through  streets 
all  blue  and  lilac  with  frost  haze,  to 
the  ghats  where  the  rising  sun  again  glorified  the 
whole  fantastic,  picturesque  line;  turning  adobe, 
sandstone  and  grimy  whitewashed  buildings  into 
the  richest  temples  and  palaces  of  dreams,  and 
lighting  the  faces  of  the  thousands  of  believers 
standing  in  the  swirling  mud  stream,  as  thousands 
have  stood  at  sunrise  for  centuries.  Even  then, 
one  can  figure  it  out  that  many  thousands  shirk 
their  religious  duties— a  cheering  sign  in  a  way— for, 
if  the  two  thousand  temples  of  Benares  with  their 
five  hundred  thousand  idols  are  tended  by  eighty 
thousand  priests,  the  sacerdotal  company  alone  would 
exceed  the  crowds  we  saw  on  any  one  morning.  The 
priests  are  supposed  to  be  driven  all  day,  to  have 
time  for  nothing  but  sacred  observances,  the  bath- 
ing, buttering,  garlanding,  tiring,  fanning,  and 
tending  of  the  idols,  and  always  to  begin  the  day 
with  the  dip  in  the  Ganges.     Many  of  them  surely 

165 


1G6  WINTER  INDIA 

omit  it  on  these  frosty  niorniiigs.  While  the  mum- 
mery goes  on  in  the  temples,  the  babus  and  pundits, 
even  those  who  have  taken  degrees  in  Western  uni- 
versities, insist  that  this  worship  is  not  idolatry, 
that  these  images  of  Vishnu,  Shiva,  Parvati,  Krishna, 
Ganesha,  and  the  rest,  the  stone  bulls,  the  sacred 
cows,  sacred  wells,  and  sacred  monkeys,  are  but  sym- 
bols— symbols  of  the  purest  and  simplest  creed,  of 
the  noblest  faith,  the  highest  philosophy— a  sym- 
bolism that  the  masses  of  course  recognize.  One 
has  all  of  a  Mohammedan's  impatience  and  con- 
tempt for  the  puerilities,  the  grossness,  the  unrea- 
sonable imbecility  of  it  all. 

One  remembers  the  Scala  Santa  in  Rome,  the 
scenes  at  Assisi  and  Lourdes,  when  he  sees  fakirs 
and  fanatics  making  the  rounds  of  all  the  shrines 
of  Benares  on  their  knees,  and  measuring  with  their 
bodies  the  fifty  miles  of  sacred  road  that  sweeps  in 
a  semicircle  around  the  suburbs  of  the  holy  city  of 
the  Brahman's  soul,  known  to  the  pious  Hindu  as 
Kasi  the  Magnificent — a  city  which  rests,  not  on 
the  earth,  but  on  the  point  of  Shiva's  trident. 

The  bazaars  of  Benares,  particularly  the  noisy 
brass  bazaar,  are  picturesque  in  a  general  way,  but 
the  wares  exposed  are  the  coarsest  and  crudest  that 
the  debased  taste  and  careless  hand  of  the  day  can 
produce.  Heavy,  ill-shapen,  vulgar  brass  pieces 
scratched  over  with  thin  and  poor  designs  replace 
the  deeply  cut  and  finely  chased  brass-work  that 
used  to  distinguish  Benares.  But  the  glint  and  glow 
and  color  of  the  base  metal  in  its  myriad  forms  make 
of  the  narrow  street  of  brass-beaters'  dens  a  long 


BENARES  167 

genre  picture.  The  fruit  and  flower  bazaar  carries 
on  the  dominant,  decorative  yellow  note,  and  the 
orange  of  marigolds  blends  well  with  the  rich  reds 
of  earthenware  in  the  pottery  bazaar,  where  the 
lotas  and  chatties  have  preserved  the  same  lines  from 
earliest  times  recorded  in  sculptures.  The  kincobs,  or 
gold  brocades,  of  Benares  are  tawdry  and  tinselly 
past  belief,  commonplace  in  design  and  color. 

If  anything  could  further  disenchant  one  with 
Hindu  forms  of  worship,  it  is  provided  at  the  tem- 
ple of  Durga,  the  Monkey  Temple.  One  steps  into 
a  red  sandstone  and  pink  stucco  court,  where  priests 
wait  for  gifts  and  gray  apes  with  red  faces  sit  in 
rows  on  the  parapets,  cornice,  and  roof,  swarm 
up  and  down  columns,  drop  noiselessly  beside  one 
and  stretch  long,  lean,  gray  arms  over  his  shoulder 
and  clutch  at  his  garments.  The  big  apes  chatter 
and  mouth  and  make  faces,  and  the  little  ones  run 
screaming  to  safety,  for  when  gift  cakes  are  im- 
pending, the  big  apes  are  violent.  The  priests  seem 
little  more  intelligent  than  the  other  sacred  servi- 
tors, and  as  more  and  more  apes  drop  noiselessly  to 
the  crowded  pavement  the  tourist  turns  and  flees. 

I  had  unceasingly  demanded  the  great  mahatma, 
a  certain  holy  man  and  miracle-worker  who  was  re- 
ported as  living  in  some  palace  garden  of  Benares, 
and  but  a  little  way  beyond  the  Monkey  Temple. 
We  left  the  carriage,  disputed  passage  with  a  sacred 
cow  in  a  narrow  lane,  and  found  the  green  paradise 
of  the  Annanbag  Garden,  where  dwelt  Swamji,  the 
living  god.  This  aged  seer  and  sage,  a  Brahman  of 
so  high  a  caste  and  sphere  that  no  touch  or  deed  can 


168  WINTER  INDIA 

defile  him,  to  whom  no  sin  is  possible,  sits  in  his  gar- 
den, ' '  air  clad, ' '  summer  and  winter  alike,  indifferent 
to  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and  thirst,  feeling  neither 
joy  nor  sorrow,  a  soul  uplifted  beyond  all  further 
test  or  trial.  He  sits  there  imparting  wisdom  to 
his  disciples  and  followers,  as  Gautama  Buddha 
taught  once  in  the  Deer  Park,  presenting  the  same 
old  unchanging  picture  of  religious  life  in  the  East. 
Like  the  Prince  Siddhartha,  Swamji  left  home  and 
wife  upon  the  birth  of  a  son.  His  duty  to  the 
world  was  then  done,  and  all  the  years  since  have 
been  given  to  study,  meditation,  and  the  welfare 
of  his  soul,  learning  the  great  yoga  mysteries  and 
passing  continually  to  higher  stages.  Two  disciples 
early  attached  themselves  to  him,  begged  for  him, 
and  devoutly  served  him,  accompanying  the  holy 
man  on  his  pilgrimages  to  sacred  places,  and  finally 
to  his  home,  where  with  tearless  indifference  he 
learned  of  the  death  of  his  son,  and  addressing 
words  of  wisdom  to  his  parents  and  wife,  passed  on. 
AVithout  money,  with  only  a  shred  of  clothing,  and 
no  care  for  the  morrow,  he  traveled  all  India,  and, 
preserved  through  heat  and  snow,  flood,  storm,  cold, 
hunger,  and  sickness,  he  came  finally  to  Benares 
when  he  felt  that  he  had  attained  supreme  wisdom 
and  triumphed  over  the  world.  A  pious  raja  put 
the  beautiful  Annanbag  (Garden  of  Happiness)  at 
his  disposal,  and,  dropping  the  one  bit  of  raiment, 
his  last  earthly  possession,  Paribrajakacharya  Sri 
Bhaskarananda  Saraswati  Swamji  lives,  air  clad, 
in  the  same  state  of  nature  as  primeval  man, 
sitting  beneath  the  trees  by  day  discoursing  to  the 


BENARES  171 

circle  of  disciples,  sleeping  uncovered  on  the  bare 
earth  at  night,  and  eating  only  the  offerings  of  fruit 
and  rice  which  his  devotees  bring  him.  A  jeweled 
youth  with  a  great  caste-mark  on  his  brow  was  sit- 
ting with  the  holy  man  when  we  were  announced 
by  Chaturgam  Lai  and  the  favor  of  an  audience 
asked;  and  the  worshiping  youth  threw  his  own 
silky  white  chudda  around  the  saint  as  we  ad- 
vanced down  the  garden  path.  The  holy  man  sat 
there  with  knees  bent,  soles  turned  upward,  and 
hand  lifted  in  precisely  the  attitude  of  the  Bud- 
dha in  art.  Birds  twittered  and  the  rustling  trees 
overhead  cast  checkered  shadows  on  the  lean  and 
wrinkled  old  ascetic  beneath.  He  had  a  kindly  face, 
a  gentle,  benevolent  manner;  he  was  very  gracious, 
courteous,  and  human,  and  the  living  god  began  at 
once  to  talk  of  the  impermanence  of  the  world,  of  the 
delusions  and  fleeting  joys  of  which  we  mistakenly 
make  so  much.  His  richly  turbaned  native  visitors 
soon  forgot  our  interruption,  listening  with  rapt 
attention,  and  each  one  bowed  reverently  whenever 
the  saint 's  eyes  were  directly  turned  in  his  direction. 
At  Swamji's  request,  a  disciple  led  us  to  a  little 
marble  shrine  in  the  garden  to  see  a  portrait  statue 
of  the  holy  man,  for  this  living  god  is  worshiped 
in  the  flesh  and  in  the  image,  there  and  in  other 
cities. 

When  we  returned  to  the  teacher,  he  had  evi- 
dently had  more  information  concerning  us  from  the 
omniscient  Chaturgam  Lai.  ''You  write  books," 
said  the  living  god.  "So  do  I.  My  books  are  com- 
mentaries on  the  Vedas  and  encouragements  to  the 


172  WINTER  INDIA 

true  religious  life.  I  like  your  spirit.  I  will  give 
you  my  book.  And  you  shall  learn  Sanskrit  and 
read  it.  You  will  give  me  your  book.  I  already 
know  English." 

"You  are  yogi,  you  are  mahatma.  You  are  all- 
knowing  and  can  perform  miracles.  Can  you  see 
to  America  and  tell  me  what  happens  there?"  I 
asked,  "you  can  read  my  mind." 

The  smile  faded  from  the  venerable  face.  He 
looked  pityingly,  kindly  at  me.  "No,  my  daughter. 
No  one  in  India  can  see  to  America.  Put  away  care. 
Do  not  think  sorrow.  Do  not  think  money."  And 
the  renowned  seer  of  seers,  sage  of  sages,  the  living 
god,  the  Brahman  above  caste  laid  his  hand  in  bless- 
ing like  any  noble  old  bishop.  We  spent  a  charming 
half-hour  under  the  Annanbag  trees,  eating  the 
saint's  oranges,  talking  with  him  and  his  visitors 
as  at  any  garden  tea.  When  we  were  leaving,  the 
saint  threw  over  our  shoulders  the  jasmine  garlands 
his  worshipers  had  laid  at  his  feet,  wound  the  bor- 
rowed chudda  around  him,  and,  rising,  stalked  with 
the  swaying  gait  of  extreme  age  to  the  gateway. 
He  shook  hands  with  us  fearlessly  and  convention- 
ally, for  he  was  beyond  defilement,  and  urged  us  to 
come  again  and  talk  with  him  in  his  garden. 

Then  Chaturgam  Lai's  tongue  was  loosened  and 
he  told  us  more  of  the  great  mahatma  and  of  the  mir- 
acles he  had  performed.  "Why,  once  they  sent 
officials  to  invite  him  to  come  to  America.  They 
wished  him  to  perform  miracles  at  the  World's 
Fair  in  Chicago."  This  was  shock  and  anticlimax, 
surely. 


BENARES  175 

We  took  a  boat  at  the  next  ghat,  and  were  towed 
up-stream  by  a  rope  made  fast  to  the  tip  of  the 
mast,  iu  the  crazy  Yang-tse  and  Asiatic  fashion,  and 
then  were  rowed  quickly  across  to  the  marble  palace 
of  the  Maharaja  of  Benares.  Instead  of  landing 
at  the  inviting  marble  steps,  we  climbed  the  mud 
bank  and  walked  around  to  an  untidy  back  gate, 
the  land  entrance,  seeing  there  an  ill-kept  menagerie 
and  the  frowzy  soldiers  of  the  body-guard.  We 
passed  through  several  courts  and  marble  halls  to 
the  state  apartments,  where  splendid  rugs,  tawdry 
European  ornaments,  and  mechanical  toys  made  ex- 
treme contrasts,  and  came  out  on  the  marble  terraces 
and  latticed  loggias  overlooking  the  river  and  the 
city's  long  line  of  palaces  and  temples.  The  jeweled 
beauties  of  the  zenana  should  have  been  lounging 
there  to  complete  the  picture,  but  they  were  shut 
up  behind  latticed  windows  looking  on  the  inside 
court.  This  Ramnuggur  palace  would  seem  to  be  the 
most  desirable  place  to  live  in,  but  there  is  a  strong 
prejudice  against  dying  there  or  anywhere  on  that 
opposite  bank  of  the  Ganges.  Generations  ago,  the 
maharaja  tormented  a  Brahman  by  asking  ninety- 
nine  times  where  his  soul  would  go  to  from  the 
palace,  and  the  Brahman,  at  the  hundredth  query, 
assured  the  great  man  that  his  soul  would  enter  a 
donkey  if  he  died  there.  Now  when  an  illness  be- 
comes at  all  serious  in  Ramnuggur  precincts,  the 
victim  is  hurried  to  a  boat  and  frantically  ferried 
across. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  palace  a  fanfare  of  trum- 
pets and  bugles  announced  the  arrival  of  the  maha- 


176  WINTER  INDIA 

raja,  and  we  stopped  to  watch  the  passing  of  the 
handsome  young  Hindu  in  his  white  and  gold  tur- 
ban, a  becoming  red  chudda  wound  around  his 
shoulders.  He  stopped  in  front  of  us,  bowed  in- 
quiringly, and  Chaturgam  Lai,  in  his  flowered  dress- 
ing-gown, introduced  us  by  name,  as  democratically  as 
any  constituent  might  stop  and  introduce  one  to  his 
congressman  on  the  court-house  steps.  After  a  short 
conversation  on  lines  of  democratic  equality,  the 
maharaja  asked  us  to  return  and  see  more  rooms  of 
the  palace  and  take  a  cup  of  tea ;  but  it  was  then  sun- 
set, darkness  soon  to  follow,  and  we  had  instead  to 
hurry  around  to  the  mud-bank  landing,  and  drift 
back  to  the  ghats  by  twinkling  lamplights,  a  last 
dull  glow  indicating  where  the  domri  were  burning 
the  bodies  of  the  poorest  believers. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


LUCKNOW 


I^^^^FIERE  was  a  truly  Oriental  hotel  at 
Lucknow— a  great,  long,  low,  white 
palace  of  a  building,  with  an  areaded 
front  upon  which  the  rooms  opened. 
There  was  a  noble  drawing-room, 
strewn  with  the  myriad  little  tables,  dwarf  chairs, 
and  knickknacks  of  British  middle-class  esthetic 
fashion,  but  glorified  by  a  great  display  of  mari- 
golds. The  dinner-table  was  such  another  feast  of 
marigolds  that  one  forgave,  or  forgot,  what  came  on 
the  plates.  The  bedchambers  were  vast,  cavernous, 
sunless  caves,  with  their  ceilings  lost  in  remote  shad- 
ows; the  beds  high,  hard  catafalques  in  the  center 
of  each  such  town  hall.  We  spread  rugs,  blankets, 
and  razais  on  these  state  couches,  and,  although  the 
bundles  of  bedding  had  grown  until  they  covered 
the  top  of  a  gharry,  not  all  of  them  could  soften  oi' 
level  those  beds. 

A  typical,  listless,  shiftless,  incompetent  poll-par- 
rot of  a  guide  undertook  to  show  us  Lucknow.  The 
most  meager  idea  of  the  Mutiny,  only  the  set  phrases 
of  local  incident,  had  ever  entered  his  head,  along 
with  a  sordid  idea  of  profit.  "Two  rupees  a  day, 
10  177 


178  WINTER  INDIA 

your  ladyship,"  whined  the  creature,  "and,  if  you 
like  me,  a  little  more  for  bakshish,  your  ladyship." 
And  so  his  woolen  comforter  and  embroidered  cap 
rode  on  our  carriage-box  to  the  Kaiserbaugh,  where 
in  its  walled  garden  the  wicked  Queen  of  Oudh  and 
the  three  hundred  women  of  the  zenana  lived  in 
jewels  and  idleness,  envied  and  hated  by  the  ninety 
nautch  dancers  housed  in  the  gate  pavilion. 

Lucknow's  museum  is  indeed  a  "wonder-house," 
and,  fortunate  in  having  most  energetic  archseolo- 
gists  and  ethnologists  as  its  curators,  its  collections 
in  those  lines  are  most  complete.  This  palace  in  a 
park  contains  in  its  first  hall  life-sized  figures  and 
groups  illustrating  the  many  races,  tribes,  and  types 
of  men  in  the  empire,  from  the  blue-eyed  men  of  the 
Northwest  to  the  inkiest  Tamil  and  Andaman  Is- 
lander. There  is  a  distracting  show  of  textiles  and 
embroideries,  of  beasts,  birds,  metal-work,  wood  and 
ivory  carving,  and  such  treasures  of  sculptured  rel- 
ics from  Buddhist  ruins  that  the  India  of  fifteen 
and  twenty  centuries  ago  is  as  well  portrayed.  The 
guide  knew  nothing  about  any  of  these  things,  and 
to  our  questions  answered  moodily:  "If  your  lady- 
ship wishes  me  to  tell  you  of  the  INIutiny,  I  can.  If 
you  will  come  down-stairs,  I  will  explain  the  model 
of  the  Residency."  Arrived  at  the  model,  the  parrot 
glibly  read  off  the  names  printed  on  each  tiny  roof, 
wall,  and  gate.  "This  is  the  Bailly  Gate.  This  is 
the  hospital,"  etc.,  etc.  "Yes,  yes,"  we  answered. 
"We  can  read  that.  You  go  on  and  explain  the 
model,  and  we  will  follow  you."  "But,  your  lady- 
ship," wailed  the  parrot,  "I  am  explaining  it  to  you 


LUCKNOW  179 

now.  This  is  the  Bailly  Gate."  "Gate  to  what?" 
we  asked  pitilessly.  "Who  was  Bailly  that  they 
should  name  a  gate  for  him?"  The  poor  poll-par- 
rot's only  answer  to  such  conundrums  was  a  rigma- 
role about  the  size  of  the  Residency.  "The  muti- 
neers," "the  rebels,"  "our  forces,"  "the  natives," 
and  "the  king's  forces"  rolled  from  his  tongue 
without  any  mental  effort.  "Eighteen  hundred 
people  were  besieged  here  for  six  months.  Many 
died.  More  than  two  thousand  of  them  were  buried 
here."  When  asked  to  explain  how  two  thousand 
could  die  if  there  were  only  eighteen  hundred  in 
the  beginning,  he  whimpered:  "But,  your  ladyship, 
let  me  tell  you  a  little  more  about  the  Mutiny.  Those 
poor  people,  hoiv  they  suffered!" 

One  has  rather  too  much  of  the  Mutiny  in  India. 
It  is  decidedly  overdone.  It  may  be  well  to  keep  the 
great  incident  alive  in  native  memory,  along  with 
the  justly  terrible  reprisals ;  but  the  tourist  gets 
sated  with  England's  woes  and  foes  of  '57,  and 
recalls  other  wars  and  sieges  since,  and  trusts  that 
the  next  generation  is  not  to  be  harrowed  with  the 
sieges  of  Ladysmith  and  Mafeking,  Tientsin  and 
Peking.  Yet  that  tale  of  English  courage  and  en- 
durance is  so  familiar  to  all  of  us,  that  none  can 
fail  to  be  deeply  stirred  by  the  sight  of  the  battered 
Bailly  Gate  and  the  pathetic,  roofless  Residency— 
a  vine-wreathed,  eloquent  monument,  England's  flag 
still  flying  night  and  day  from  the  tower  that  never 
surrendered.  It  is  the  most  eloquent,  the  most  hu- 
man and  speaking  ruin  that  I  know;  and  in  that 
beautiful  garden  not  a  voice  is  raised,  nor  an  irrev- 


180  WINTER  INDIA 

erent  word  heard,  every  sound  unconsciously  hushed 
by  the  associations.  The  climax  is  reached  at  the 
grave  of  Henry  Lawrence,  that  great  soldier  who 
"tried  to  do  his  duty.  May  the  Lord  have  mercy 
on  his  soul." 

We  turned  away  from  the  Eesidency  door  sur- 
feited with  sorrows.  We  could  stand  no  more  mute 
memorials  of  suffering.  "What,  memsahib!  Will 
you  not  even  see  that  cellar f"  implored  the  guide, 
a  chastened,  tongue-tied  soul  since  being  informed 
that  he  would  be  dismissed  with  six  annas  only  if 
he  again  addressed  us  as  ladyships.  "But  the  mem- 
sahibs  all  like  it.  We  do  it  to  please,"  he  wailed. 
An  old  soldier,  survivor  of  the  scene,  is  guardian  of 
the  Residency,  and  he  saw  that  we  saw  every  bullet- 
hole  and  shell-mark,  and  visited  every  room  down  to 
the  underground  chambers  intended  as  luxurious  re- 
treats in  hot  weather.  The  old  veteran  who  had 
come  in  with  Outram's  relief  in  September,  and 
fought  through  the  second  siege  until  Colin  Camp- 
bell's final  relief  in  November,  made  very  real  to  us 
how  a  thousand  people  lived  in  that  one  building  all 
the  unusually  hot  summer  of  '57,  with  a  plague 
of  flies  that  covered  the  floors  and  walls  and  buzzed 
sickeningly  over  the  people  and  their  food. 

We  had  then  supped  full  of  Mutiny  horrors,  and 
we  broke  with  the  program  of  sight-seeing  and  drove 
for  hours,— first  to  the  river  bank  where  the  dhobie- 
men  were  swinging,  pounding,  slapping  wet  gar- 
ments with  might  and  main,  and  spreading  them  out 
in  acres  of  white  mosaic  on  bank  and  common.  We 
heeded  not  ruined  Dilkusha,  where  Havelock  died, 


LUCKNOW  181 

nor  the  route  of  Campbell's  advance.  ''Will  the 
memsahib  not  even  see  the  Secunderabad  ? "  wailed 
the  guide  when  we  refused  to  look  into  that  slaugh- 
ter-pen, where  sixteen  hundred  and  foi'ty  sepoys, 
fleeing  from  the  Highlanders,  were  bayoneted  in  a 
cul-de-sac.  Even  Lord  Roberts  has  said  that  that 
surging  heap  of  dead  and  dying,  more  than  shoulder 
high  against  the  wall,  was  an  incident  of  war  that 
sickened  men  bent  on  avenging  the  atrocities  of 
Cawnpore. 

We  saw  with  interest  the  great  Mohammedan 
Imambara,  the  arches  of  its  court  framing  pictures 
of  other  domes  and  minarets,  its  mihrab  pointing 
westward  to  Mecca,  and  its  deep  baoli,  or  well,  with 
encircling  marble  galleries  where  it  is  always  cool 
in  summer.  The  clock-tower,  the  white  mosque 
filled  with  mirrors  like  a  Champs-Elysees  cafe,  and 
the  old  palace  of  the  kings  of  Oudh  hung  with  por- 
traits of  those  flabby  and  ill-favored  royalties,  were 
tedious  stock  sights.  We  saw  with  far  more  interest 
the  latest  American  magazines  lying  on  the  table 
of  the  United  Service  Club,  which  now  occupies  the 
old  Umbrella  House  of  the  nawab,  an  important 
place  during  the  siege. 

Although  it  was  a  real  city  of  palaces  long  before 
the  Mutiny,  and  a  larger  place  then  than  Calcutta  or 
Bombay,  the  bazaars  of  this  old  native  capital  were 
not  so  very  interesting;  and,  except  in  the  silver 
bazaar,  a  plague  of  torpid  flies  tormented  us.  The 
perfume-shops  were  countless,  and  we  sniffed  gums, 
grasses,  woods,  and  attars  of  all  the  flowers,  until 
we  could  not  tell  the  precious  rose  attar,  that  sells  at 


182  WINTER  INDIA 

four  times  its  weight  in  silver,  from  the  rose-water 
at  twelve  cents  a  quart  that  one  carries  for  ablu- 
tions on  railway  trains. 

Again  we  caught  sight  of  the  square  gray  tower, 
—the  tower  that  Mrs.  Steele  has  introduced  so  well 
in  "Voices  of  the  Night,"— and  the  dreadful  de- 
pression of  Mutiny  memories  fell  upon  us.  The 
dark,  vaulted  bedchambers  of  the  hotel  were  too 
suggestive  of  the  Residency  cellar,  and  rather  than 
pass  a  night  in  the  city  of  such  associations,  or  stop 
the  next  day  to  feed  on  the  greater  horrors  of  Cawn- 
pore,  we  took  the  afternoon  train  for  Agra.  Some 
tourists  came  on  at  Cawnpore,  anxious  to  escape 
from  the  horror  of  it.  They  had  seen  it  all,  and  suf- 
fered all  the  terrible  deaths  in  imagination,  from  the 
ghats  where  the  boat-loads  of  English  were  burned, 
drowned,  or  murdered  in  cold  blood  by  the  fiendish 
Nana  Sahib,  to  the  room  where  the  women  and  chil- 
dren were  bayoneted  and  clubbed  against  the  wall, 
and  the  crowning  agony  of  the  memorial  angel  over 
the  well  of  burial — all  explained  in  detail  by  an 
old  soldier  survivor. 

Regarding  Agra  as  the  most  important  tourist 
place  in  India,  it  is  disconcerting  to  have  to  reach 
it  by  cross-roads,  way-trains,  and  branch  lines,  ar- 
riving always  between  midnight  and  daylight.  We 
changed  at  Tundla  Junction  in  a  deluge  of  rain, 
and  rode  in  a  crowded  car,  seven  in  a  single  com- 
partment, without  any  lamps,  for  an  hour  to  Agra. 

A  huge  turban  from  the  hotel  claimed  us,  and 
when  the  file  of  baggage  coolies  had  trailed  after  us 
to  the  entrance,  I  said,  "Get  me  a  gharry."    "Very 


LUCKNOW  183 

well,  madam.  Very  well.  Very  well, "  said  the  tur- 
ban, flourishing  his  cane.  After  five  minutes  I  re- 
peated the  order  to  turban  tramping  madly  up  and 
down  the  flagstones,  cuffing  coolies  and  bawling  at 
every  one  and  no  one.  "Very  well,  very  well,  mad- 
am," said  this  madman  of  Agra.  Another  appeal 
only  pulled  the  string  for  another  shower  of  "very 
wells,"  and  nothing  happened.  I  bade  the  bearer 
bring  a  gharry  at  once,  and  after  big  turban  had 
beaten  the  air,  beaten  the  bearer,  and  the  two  had 
screeched  a  mad  dialogue,  two  lean  horses  and  a  rat- 
tletrap night-liner  drew  up  and  took  us  inside,  the 
luggage  on  the  roof,  the  turban  on  the  box,  and  the 
bearer  on  behind.  The  ill-matched  horses  made  a  dash 
out  from  the  lamplighted  station,  across  the  great 
common  before  Akbar's  red  sandstone  fort,  and  took 
a  turn  entirely  round  a  tree-box.  After  a  second 
and  a  third  turn  around  the  tree,  I  put  my  head  out 

and  said  severely,  "  Take  us  to  the  Hotel  ." 

"Very  well.  Very  well,  madam,"  floated  down 
from  the  box,  and  with  a  jerk  and  a  leap  the  ponies 
made  another  tour  of  the  tree.  We  continued  to 
whirl  and  circle  around  that  sapling  by  the  light  of  a 
thin,  wet  moon,  wrangling  voices  and  whip-crackings 
from  overhead  drowning  any  further  directions  to 
drive  to  the  hotel.  Our  friends,  following  in  the 
next  gharry,  thought  the  first  circlings  a  runaway; 
then,  hearing  the  voices  from  the  box,  arrived  at 
another  idea,  and  cried:  "Oh,  come  on  to  the  hotel. 
It  's  no  use  trying  to  see  the  Taj  now.  It  is  after 
one  o'clock." 

Our  answer  was  lost  as  the  ponies  ran  around  the 


184  WINTER   INDIA 

tree  again.  In  time  the  bearer  was  made  to  under- 
stand, and  to  lead  the  ponies  by  the  bridle  out  of 
the  enchanted  square,  and  they  splashed  along  so- 
berly enough  through  wet  and  gloomy  avenues  to  the 
far-away  hotel.  This  was  an  incongruous,  opera- 
bouffe  sort  of  arrival  in  and  introduction  to  the 
city  of  one's  soul  and  dreams,  where  more  of  sen- 
timent, beauty,  and  haunting  charm  aBide  than  in 
all  the  peninsula ;  but  sentiment  with  difficulty  sur- 
vives the  disenchantment  and  jarring  contacts  of 
Indian  travel.  One  must  see  India  and  spend  his 
sentiment  on  it  afterward. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


AGRA 


[0  the  traveler  Agra  means,  stands  for, 
the  Taj  alone,  the  most  interesting  ob- 
ject in  India;  and,  arrived  there,  one 
almost  fears  to  precipitate  the  supreme 
moment,  to  put  it  to  the  test,  to  take 
the  first  look.  There  was  no  inspiration  in  the  gray, 
cloudy  morning  or  the  tedious  drive  from  the  hotel 
in  the  farthest  suburb  three  miles  to  the  walled 
garden  by  the  river  bank.  A  sandstone  gateway 
in  a  long  wall  admitted  us  to  the  serai,  or  outer 
court,  where  cabs  and  bullock-carts  stood  and  touts, 
peddlers,  and  guides  squatted  waiting  for  prey, 
scenting  the  first  tourist  rupee  of  the  day.  There 
fronted  the  Great  Gateway,  a  magnificent  sandstone 
tower  in  itself  worth  coming  to  see,  its  arch  inlaid 
with  white  verses  and  flowers,  and  a  row  of  airy 
little  bell  cupolas  fringing  the  roof-line.  We  went 
in  through  the  drafty  rotunda  of  a  hall,  and 
straight  before  us  was  the  vision  of  beauty,  the  Taj 
Mahal— the  most  supremely  beautiful  building  in 
all  the  world— the  most  perfect  creation  of  that  kind 
that  the  mind  and  hand  of  man  have  ever  achieved — 
one  of  the  great  objectives  of  travel  that  does  not 

185 


186  WINTER   INDIA 

disappoint,  but  far  exceeds  all  anticipations— a  re- 
ward for  all  the  distance  one  may  travel  to  reach 
it— recompense  for  all  one  endures  in  Indian  travel. 
Well  as  one  knows  it  from  photographs  and  engrav- 
ings, the  reality  is  as  astonishing,  as  overwhelming, 
as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  it.  Even  while  he  first 
looks  through  the  arch  to  the  white  dome  above  the 
cypress-trees,  it  seems  too  rarely  perfect  to  be  real, 
too  incredibly  beautiful  to  be  true.  It  would  not 
have  surprised  me  if  the  light  had  faded,  a  curtain 
had  fallen ;  or,  still  less,  if  one  had  found  he  could 
not  enter,  that  no  foot  could  touch  the  garden-path 
or  the  white  terrace,  which  is  mere  pedestal  for  this 
marvelous  work  of  art.  After  watching  the  en- 
trance of  some  others,  we  paused  for  a  first  stead- 
fast look,  and  then,  all  excitement  and  exaltation, 
followed  the  marble  path  and  mounted  the  half-way 
platform  that  affords  the  perfect  view-point,  the 
white  wonder  reflected  in  the  long  marble  canal  at 
their  feet. 

The  Taj  on  its  high  platform,  with  the  red  sand- 
stone mosque  at  the  west,  the  complementary  build- 
ing or  ''Response"  on  the  east,  and  the  whole  sky- 
space  over  and  beyond  the  river  as  background, 
presents  the  most  harmonious  and  perfectly  bal- 
anced composition  and  is  the  most  admirably  placed 
building  in  India.  The  eye  travels  from  feature 
to  feature  and  detail  to  detail,  and  the  wonder  of 
its  perfection  continually  grows.  The  bands  of  low- 
relief  carving,  the  panels  and  borders  of  inlaid  work, 
afford  endless  study,  and  one  easily  accepts  the 
guide's  set  story  that  forty  varieties  of  carnelian 


AGRA  189 

are  inlaid  in  one  small  flower,  and  that  the  whole 
Koran  is  inlaid,  verse  by  verse,  on  the"  walls.  There 
is  a  whole  new  set  of  sensations  when  one  enters  the 
softly  lighted,  dim  white  interior,  with  the  echo  re- 
peating each  word  like  the  response  of  a  chanted 
service — a  single  note  from  flute  or  guitar  a  whole 
theme.  A  trellis  of  marble  tracery,  with  inlaid  bor- 
ders, screens  the  two  tombs,  low  sarcophagi  of  jew- 
eled marble  resting  on  inlaid  platforms.  Mumtaz-i- 
Mahal  in  the  center,  where  the  Great  Mogul  laid 
her,  and  with  Shah  Jahan  at  her  side  are  laid  away 
in  real  simple  white  tombs  in  a  vault  immediately 
below  the  sarcophagi ;  and  to  them  the  aged  guardian 
conducts  one  with  a  lantern. 

We  went  back  at  sunset,  and  saw  only  an  unin- 
teresting yellow  ball  sink  against  a  hazy  horizon, 
and  the  clear-cut  shadows  in  the  arches  of  the  Taj 
fade  to  white  and  gray.  In  a  little  while  the  yel- 
low ball  of  the  full  moon  rose  beyond  the  river,  and 
flooded  the  eastern  arch  with  a  splendor  unimag- 
ined.  On  the  platform  in  mid-garden  were  other 
moonlight  pilgrims,  and  what  did  they  talk  about 
in  face  of  this  glorious  apparition,  this  wonder  of 
the  world?  The  German  professor  told  how  the 
mutton  chops  were  served  at  his  hotel— brought  in 
and  passed  around  sizzling  on  the  hot  grill !  Could 
sacrilege  go  further? 

There  was  a  British  artist  at  our  hotel,  "painting 
Tajes,"  as  he  naively  explained,  for  the  "London 
spring  market"— "four  rather  nice  ones"  already 
finished,  and  more  to  do  while  the  fine  weather 
lasted;  since  early  in  March  the  hot  winds  begin, 


190  WINTER  INDIA 

a  scorching  gale  is  blowing  by  noon,  and  the  air  is 
filled  with  dust.  "Yes,  it  is  a  bit  chilly  sitting  in 
the  garden  so  long,  these  days,"  he  said,  ''and  the 
tourists  do  bother  a  bit,  you  know;  looking  over 
one's  shoulder  and  asking  one  if  it  is  hard  to  do." 
When  we  hurried  from  dinner  the  next  night  for  a 
second  moonlight  view,  the  artist  said :  ' '  Oh,  I  say ! 
You  Americans  have  such  a  notion  for  seeing  the  Taj 
by  moonlight.  There  were  some  American  ladies 
here  last  month  at  the  full  of  the  moon,  and  they 
went  down  there  after  dinner,  too." 

"Have  n't  you  seen  it  by  moonlight  yet?" 
' '  Oh,  dear,  no !  I  am  there  all  day,  you  know. ' ' 
"But  are  you  not  going  to-night?"  we  asked  in 
amazement. 

"  No,  I  think  not.  I  will  go  sometime,  though. 
It  might  be  nice  to  paint  a  moonlight  Taj,"  and  he 
went  on  eating  cheese! 

"With  the  round  silver  moon  shining  high  in  the 
vault  of  the  intense,  indigo-blue  sky,  the  Taj  Mahal 
was  the  frost-palace  of  one's  dreams,  and  from  the 
dark  arch  of  the  entrance  gateway  it  seemed  fairly 
to  shine  and  flash  in  the  strong  light  poured 
full  on  its  eastern  face.  There  was  silence  in  the 
enchanted  garden,  and  as  we  walked  toward  the 
luminous  white  palace  only  the  far  murmur  of  run- 
ning water  and  the  scent  of  violets  and  mignonette 
told  upon  the  other  senses.  We  had  the  place  to  our- 
selves for  one  hour  of  silence  and  charm,  sitting  in 
the  shadows  of  the  Eesponse.  Then  the  chatter,  clat- 
ter of  the  tourist  contingent  was  heard  at  the  gate- 
way  and   down   the   path.     ''Ach,    Wunderschon! 


AGRA  191 

Wunderschon!"  the  loudest  voice  proclaimed.  Then 
clouds  skimmed  over  the  moon,  dimming  the  Taj, 
which  was  suddenly  transformed  to  silver  and  frosted 
ivory  again  as  the  moon  rode  out.  The  '^Wunder- 
schun"  voices  continued  down  the  path  until  smoth- 
ered in  the  staircase  inside  the  platform,  came  out 
full-lunged  on  the  terrace,  and  there  proclaimed  with 
greater  volume  the  wonderful  beauty  of  the  white 
building.  Echoes  came  from  the  domed  hall,  then 
the  faint,  glow-worm  light  of  the  custodian's  lan- 
tern led  the  voluble  gutturals  around  the  octagon 
and  down  to  the  tombs.  Next  cockney  voices  came 
down  the  garden  walk — some  "Tommies"  from  the 
cantonment  with  their  "'Arriets, "  who,  skylarking 
down  to  the  terrace,  with  an  all-hands-round  at  the 
entrance  of  the  platform  stairway,  chased,  shrieking, 
up  the  inner  stairway  and  came  out  on  the  platform 
with  shouts  of  laughter,  each  slim,  trim  figure  in 
red  coat  and  box  cap  standing  out  distinct  in  color 
in  the  moonlight.  Disenchanted,  we  fled  through 
the  darkest  garden  paths.  It  was  sacrilege  of  the 
rankest  kind  for  those  sweethearting  couples  to  be 
skylarking  around  the  marble  screen  of  the  tombs, 
dropping  their  barbarous  "h's"  to  summon  the  echo, 
the  pure  soul  of  the  Taj  Mahal, 

For  four  days  we  haunted  the  garden  of  the  Taj, 
for  by  noonday,  sunset,  and  moonlight  it  took  on  as 
many  rarer  qualities  and  aspects;  and  six  times  a 
day,  as  we  drove  those  long  miles  to  and  from  the 
gateway,  we  berated  the  hotel-keepers  for  not  put- 
ting the  hotel  where  it  should  be.  The  guardians 
and  keepers  at  the  Taj  came  to  know  us,  the  touts 


192  WINTER   INDIA 

and  guides  let  us  alone.  We  found,  after  many 
comparative  tests,  that  the  best  full  view  of  the  Taj 
is  to  be  had  from  the  second  story  of  the  entrance 
gateway;  the  best  sunset  view  from  the  west  pavil- 
ion over  the  river  angle  of  the  terrace,  reached  by 
a  staircase  in  the  mosque ;  and  the  best  moonlight 
effect  is  that  obtained  from  the  opposite  east  pa- 
vilion, reached  by  the  corresponding  stairway  in  the 
Response. 

There  were  Philistines  among  some  of  the  early 
English  commanders  at  Agra,  the  most  soulless  of 
them  all  being  that  Lord  William  Bentinck  who 
wanted  to  sell  the  Taj  Mahal,  and  actually  con- 
sidered the  offer  of  thirty  thousand  pounds  from  a 
rich  Hindu.  One  gasps,  too,  to  hear  how  the  Maha- 
raja of  Sindhia  entertained  a  viceroy  in  the  en- 
chanted garden,  serving  supper  in  the  Response, 
ham  and  champagne,  "swine's  flesh  and  wine,"  in 
the  architectural  counterpart  of  the  Mosque.  Lord 
Auckland  also  was  entertained  in  the  Taj,  when  there 
were  games  in  the  garden,  with  roars  of  laughter, 
and  ham  and  champagne  again  in  the  Response.  In 
the  same  way,  a  ball  was  given  for  Lord  Ellenborough 
after  the  siege  of  Kabul,  lanterns  were  strung  on  the 
cypress-trees,  there  was  dancing  to  military  music  on 
the  marble  platform,  and  supper  in  the  Response,  as 
usual.  The  native  press  denounced  this  desecration 
of  a  tomb  and  place  of  worship,  but  the  Agra  officials 
argued  that  the  Response  was  not  a  mosque,  and,  if 
it  were,  it  had  long  since  lost  sanctity  by  its  desecra- 
tion by  Jats  and  Hindus.  Moreover,  they  said  that 
the  literal  translation  of  its  name  was  "the  feast- 


AGRA  193 

place"— it  was  before  the  tomb  was  built,  Tatar 
and  Mogul  alike  preparing  a  beautiful  garden  in 
life  that  it  might  become  their  burial-place,  after 
which  it  was  never  used  for  pleasuring,  but  given 
over  to  the  care  of  priests.  The  Taj  Mahal  was  held 
in  great  reverence  in  Mohammedan  days,  and  visitors 
were  blindfolded  at  the  entrance  and  not  uncovered 
until  they  reached  the  place  of  prayer.  When  the 
Jats  took  Agra  and  looted  its  palaces,  they  carried 
off  the  entrance  gates  with  their  thousands  of  silver 
nails,  each  with  a  rupee  as  its  head.  They  took  away 
the  inner  doors  of  the  Taj,  each  a  single  translucent 
slab  of  agate,  the  gold  spire  and  crescent,  and  the 
precious  carpets  laid  three  and  four  deep  on  the 
floor.  No  vandalism  of  that  kind  has  taken  place 
in  British  days,  and  there  has  been  great  interest 
shown  in  keeping  the  gardens  in  their  original  con- 
dition. In  1876  the  whole  place  was  thoroughly 
repaired  and  restored  in  preparation  for  the  Prince 
of  Wales's  visit,  and  the  closest  watch  is  kept  to  pre- 
vent natives,  soldiers,  and  tourists  from  picking  out 
the  precious  bits  of  inlaid  stone.  Severe  punish- 
ment is  visited  upon  natives  who  pick  flowers  or 
otherwise  transgress  within  the  inclosure,  and  the 
query  was  always  in  my  mind  whether  or  not  the 
natives  had  any  comprehension  of  the  beauty  and 
sentiment  of  the  place.  It  was  ever  a  growing 
wonder  that  these  people,  the  Hindus,  had  ever  ac- 
complished it— how  even  twenty-two  thousand  of 
them,  working  for  seventeen  or  for  twenty-two  years 
under  Moslem  directors,  had  ever  reared  it.  Like 
Sir  Charles  Dilke,  one  finds  it  hard  to  believe  that 


194  WINTER  INDIA 

"a  people  who  paint  their  cows  pink  with  green 
spots,  and  their  houses  orange  or  bright  red,  should 
be  the  authors  of  the  Pearl  Mosque  or  the  Taj.  It 
would  be  too  wonderful."  It  is  easier  to  credit  the 
plans  to  the  Frenchman  Austin  de  Bordeaux  or  to 
any  of  the  master  masons  or  carvers  who  came  from 
Bagdad,  Constantinople,  Samarkand,  and  from  every 
Moslem  center  of  note,  and  worked  here  during  the 
same  years  that  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were  building 
their  first  log-house  on  Plymouth  Bay. 

Driving  through  the  great  fortress  gate,  we  saw 
first  the  red  palace  of  Akbar,  sandstone  prelude  to 
the  jeweled  marble  halls  of  Shah  Jahan,  the  great- 
est builder  of  all  the  Moguls.  The  first  or  private 
audience-hall,  the  Khas  Mahal,  lies  across  the  Grape 
Garden,  its  windows  set  in  the  solid  battlemented 
walls  that  rise  sheer  from  the  moats.  It  is  a  dream 
in  white — arches  and  walls  of  pure  white  marble 
carved  in  scrolls,  traceries,  and  flowers  in  low  relief, 
the  windows  filled  with  marble  lattices.  The  scheme 
of  white  on  white  is  offset  by  a  ceiling  of  gold  and 
colors,  and  the  Khas  Mahal  is  a  model  for  architects 
and  decorators  for  all  time.  By  an  open  terrace 
on  the  battlements,  and  a  series  of  marble  halls  with 
walls  inlaid  with  graceful  Persian  arabesques  and 
flowers  in  colored  stones,  we  came  to  the  Jasmine 
Tower,  Shah  Jahan 's  finest  construction.  The 
rounded  balcony  of  the  tower  projects  beyond  the 
walls  and  commands  the  moats  below,  the  long  curve 
of  the  Jumna,  and  the  white  bubbles  of  the  Taj  be- 
yond a  flat,  green  foreground  of  river  bottom  mo- 
saiced  over  with  the  washermen 's  white  patches.  The 


AGRA  195 

lovely  Mumtaz-i-Mahal  livi'd  in  thei?e  rooms  around 
the  fountain  court,  all  their  surface  a  maze  of  pre- 
cious inlay,  the  floor  of  the  court  a  marble  pachisi- 
board,  the  walls  of  the  inner  chambers  fitted  with 
long,  sunken  pockets  for  jewels  that  only  a  woman's 
slender  hand  and  wrist  could  reach  into.  A  stair- 
case leads  down  to  the  Shish  Mahal,  or  Hall  of  Mir- 
rors, a  cool  grotto  of  a  bath  set  with  tiny  mirrors  in 
carved  plaster,  where  a  cascade  once  tinkled  down 
a  stepped  arrangement  over  colored  lights.  Over- 
head is  the  tiny  Gem  Mosque,  where  the  women 
prayed  the  Prophet  to  grant  them  souls;  this  ex- 
quisite marble  cell  being  afterward  the  prison  place 
of  Shah  Jahan.  Shah  Jahan,  the  accepted  Great 
Mogul  of  Europeans,  and  contemporary  of  Crom- 
well, was  deposed  by  his  son,  Jahangir,  but  cheered  in 
his  seven  years'  captivity  by  his  faithful  daughter, 
Jahanira.  Another  passage  leads  along  above  the 
battlements  from  the  Jasmine  Tower  to  the  Diwan-i- 
Khas,  another  private  audience-hall  with  an  inner 
decoration  of  white  on  white  in  low  relief,  the  outer 
pillars  and  arches  inlaid  with  color.  A  considerable 
annual  outlay  is  required  to  keep  these  inlaid  walls 
in  order,  to  replace  the  bits  of  carnelian,  jade,  jas- 
per, amethyst,  agate,  and  lapis  lazuli  dug  out  by 
vicious  tourists  and  idling  hooligans  of  soldiers. 
This  audience-hall  fronts  upon  a  terrace  flush  with 
the  battlements,  and  there  at  close  of  day  the  Great 
Mogul  used  to  lounge  on  a  black  marble  throne, 
watching  the  domes  and  minarets  of  the  Taj  grow 
beneath  the  hands  of  the  thousands  of  workmen. 
When  the  marauding  Jats  captured  the  fort  they 


196  WINTER  INDIA 

sacked  the  palace,  despoiled  the  Di\van-i-Khas  of  its 
silver  ceiling,  but  when  they  attempted  to  sit  on  this 
seat  of  the  Great  Mogul  it  broke  under  the  indig- 
nity. Half  of  the  court  space  was  once  a  sunken 
pond,  with  a  carved  niche  or  throne  in  the  sur- 
rounding gallery,  where  the  great  one  used  to  sit 
to  fish  at  ease.  It  is  now  but  a  dry  stone  court,  and 
no  trace  remains  of  the  bath-room  of  precious  green 
marble,  whose  interior  was  stripped  by  the  Marquis 
of  Hastings,  who  wished  to  send  it  to  England  to 
be  reerected  as  a  bath-room  for  George  IV.  The 
loose  marbles  lay  around  for  years,  uncared  for, 
and  were  finally  sold  for  a  trifle.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  any  outsider  to  vent  his  indignation  at  this  bar- 
baric proceeding,  as  Sir  James  Fergusson  has  said 
it  all,  with  a  vehemence  none  can  approach,  and  has 
sufiSciently  laid  the  lash  of  his  terrible  sarcasm  on 
his  Philistine  countrymen. 

From  this  Court  of  the  Fish-pond  a  door  admits 
one  directly  to  the  Diwan-i-Am,  or  great  audience- 
hall,  its  marble  lattices  and  inlaid  throne  splendid 
reminders  of  the  past,  the  rows  of  British  cannon 
and  the  red-coated  sentries  beyond  sufficient  evi- 
dences of  the  present.  We  crossed  the  court  and 
ascended  the  staircase  to  the  Moti  Musjid,  the  Pearl 
Mosque,  over  which  three  generations  of  writers 
have  raved  as  an  architectural  chef -d 'ceuvre  second 
only  to  the  Taj.  After  all  the  splendid  creations 
of  Shah  Jahan,  this  in  some  way  failed  to  produce 
an  equal  impression,  and  it  gave  us  a  distinct  sense 
of  disappointment.  The  simplicity  of  the  white 
mosque,  relieved  only  by  the  blue  and  gray  veins 


AGRA  199 

of  the  marble  and  the  one  long  inscription  in 
black  inlay,  did  not  appeal.  The  white  court  with 
its  mirror  tank,  the  white  cloisters,  the  vista  of 
white  arches  and  columns,  and  the  pale  shadows  of 
the  interior  had  beauty,— Vereshchagin's  painting 
had  told  one  that,— but  the  Moti  Musjid  gave  the 
chill  of  the  first  disappointment  in  Agra. 

The  tomb  of  I 'tamadu-daulah,  father  of  Nur  Ja- 
han,  the  famous  wife  of  Jahangir,  and  grandfather 
of  Mumtaz-i-Mahal,  is  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Jumna;  far  above  the  Taj  and  from  the  high  rail- 
way bridge  and  from  the  garden  terraces  one  has 
still  different  views  of  the  Taj.  All  the  roads  lead- 
ing there  were  crowded  one  Sunday  afternoon  with 
strings  of  ekkas  and  bullock-carts  overflowing  with 
women  and  children,  and  the  garden-paths  and  the 
marble  platform  around  the  marquetry  tomb  of 
the  Persian  treasurer  were  crowded  with  family  par- 
ties. The  women  and  children  were  all  in  their  most 
brilliant  holiday  attire,  their  jewels  and  tinsel,  fan- 
tastic fineries  and  fripperies  of  every  kind  making 
the  green  garden  around  the  white  pavilion  a  dazzle 
of  color,  a  dream  of  India.  Complacent  fathers  sat 
stocking-footed  on  outspread  blankets,  their  veiled 
women  and  children,  huddled  near,  regarding  the 
superior  being  with  awe — a  joyous  Indian  family 
holiday  of  the  middle  classes.  A  small  boy  flashed 
by  in  a  petunia  satin  coat  and  gold-embroidered 
cap,  bare-legged  and  tugging  at  a  bow  and  arrow. 
Another  boy  in  gorgeous  red  satin  top-clothes 
munched  a  green  apple,  and  the  petunia  archer  flew 
at  him  with  the  fury  of  a  tiger.    Screams  from  the 


200  WINTER  INDIA 

combatants  and  all  their  female  followers  rent  the 
air,  and  when  forcibly  separated  neither  was  to  be 
appeased  by  proffered  peanuts.  Then  a  small  sister 
of  the  petunia  coat  dashed  forward  and  dealt  the 
green-apple  boy  such  a  clap  on  the  ear  that  the 
female  parliament  was  paralyzed.  When  we  pre- 
sented the  intrepid  little  woman  with  some  annas  of 
admiration  our  dumfounded  bearer  asked,  "Why 
do  such  curious  thing?"  and  afterward  tried  half- 
heartedly to  explain  to  the  crouching  women  that  it 
was  our  testimonial  to  the  first  woman  in  India  with 
any  backbone.  With  laughter,  the  four  wives,  the 
two  daughters,  and  the  wrinkled  old  nurse  in  pew- 
ter jewelry,  who  were  with  the  father  of  the  little 
"new  woman,"  promised  to  keep  her  in  the  habit  of 
resenting  tyrant  man  and  redressing  promptly  all 
the  wrongs  that  came  to  her  notice. 

The  garden  rang  with  jingling  anklets,  and  the 
play  of  colors  was  kaleidoscopic.  Two  beautiful 
young  women  raised  their  white  head-sheets  to  look 
at  us  as  they  passed,  red  shoes  and  full  yellow  skirts 
and  much  coin  jewelry  making  them  fantastic  fig- 
ures fit  for  a  fancy-dress  ball.  Scores  of  women 
flounced  by  in  red  skirts,  green  skirts,  changeable 
silk  skirts  with  tinsel  borders,  and  wearing  purple, 
green,  yellow,  and  white  head-sheets.  A  nautch- 
girl  came  jingling  by,  her  pale-blue  skirts  the  only 
touch  of  that  color  in  the  whole  garden.  After 
we  had  seen  the  tombs  in  the  mosaic  pavilion, 
whose  inlaid  walls  were  the  first  to  be  decorated  in 
pietra  dura  in  India,  we  mounted  to  the  terrace  roof 
around  the  upper  story  of  the  marble  reliquary, 


AGRA  201 

which  is  a  mass  of  fine  relief-carving  and  lattice- 
work, and  looked  down  upon  the  brilliant  scene 
in  the  garden.  And  this  spectacular  gathering  of 
so  many  hundreds  of  women  and  children  was  all 
to  celebrate  the  ceremonial  hair-cutting  of  the  year 
—the  clippings  of  the  children's  hair  being  brought 
to  the  terrace  and  there  thrown  into  the  Jumna,  with 
flower  offerings. 


CHAPTER   XV 

AKBAR,   THE   GREATEST    MOGUL   OF   THEM    ALL 

T  Agra,  Akbar,  the  greatest  of  all  the 
Mogul  sovereigns,  descendant  of  Baber 
and  Timur,  and  of  tribal  connec- 
tion with  Genghis  Khan,  becomes  a 
very  real  personage.  He  lived  in  that 
age  of  great  sovereigns  when  Henry  IV,  Philip  II, 
and  Queen  Elizabeth  ruled  in  Europe.  He  has  been 
called  the  Marcus  Aurelius  and  the  Frederick  the 
Great  of  India,  and  he  was  the  greatest  builder  the 
country  had  then  known.  Forts,  palaces,  tombs, 
and  whole  cities  sprang  up  by  his  command,  and  at 
his  court  literature,  art,  and  all  religions  were  hon- 
ored. Brahmans,  Mohammedans,  Sikhs,  Jains,  and 
Catholic  priests  expounded  and  argued  with  him 
in  a  first  parliament  of  religions,  and,  regarding 
them  all  impartially,  he  devised  a  universal  theology, 
a  compromise  creed  which  his  vizier  and  not  a  few 
courtiers  adopted.  He  himself  worshiped  the  sun 
every  morning,  as  representative  of  the  divinity 
which  animates  and  rules  the  world.  He  was  a 
strenuous  sort  of  ruler  too,  walking  twenty  and 
thirty  miles  a  day,  to  the  dismay  of  his  courtiers; 
and  once  he  rode  from  Ajmir  to  Agra  in  two  days, 

202 


AKBAR,  THE  GREATEST  MOGUL  OF  THEM  ALL  203 

covering  the  two  hundred  and  twenty  miles  by  innu- 
merable relays  of  fast  horses.  Akbar  wrote  his  mem- 
oirs, in  worthy  emulation  of  Baber,  whose  autobiog- 
raphy in  illuminated  Persian  text  is  treasured  in  the 
Agra  College  library. 

In  the  usual  reverse  order  of  all  Indian  sight-see- 
ing, we  first  saw  Akbar 's  tomb,  and  then  his  City 
of  Victory.  The  tomb  is  at  Secundra,  a  suburb  of 
Agra.  A  great  red  sandstone  gateway  admits  one  to 
the  flagged  court,  and  the  impressive  pillared  pa- 
vilion, rising  story  upon  story,  after  the  oldest  Bud- 
dhist constructions,  covers  the  remains  of  the  great- 
est of  the  Moguls.  A  pierced  marble  screen  walls 
the  upper  terrace,  where  the  white  sarcophagus,  cov- 
ered with  carving,  lies  open  to  the  sun  and  sky, 
the  intended  white  dome  never  having  been  com- 
pleted by  Akbar 's  successors.  The  real  tomb  is 
reached  by  a  sloping  passageway,  and  the  monarch 
lies  in  a  grave  scooped  in  the  earth  like  the  graves 
of  his  desert-chief  ancestors. 

Never  on  any  sleigh-ride,  nor  in  winter  travel  in 
the  North,  have  I  known  such  suffering  from  cold  as 
during  the  twenty-two-mile  ride  from  Agra  to  Fateh- 
pur  Sikri,  Akbar 's  City  of  Victory.  The  heaviest 
winter  clothing  and  all  the  wraps,  rugs,  razais,  and 
hot-water  bottles  could  not  defy  the  insidious  air. 
The  sun  shone,  the  trees  were  green,  the  road  was 
smooth  and  well  kept,  but  the  keen,  raw,  icy  wind 
of  a  Canadian  March  so  benumbed  us  on  our  way 
to  Akbar 's  Versailles  that  several  times  we  ran  be- 
side the  victoria  in  our  efforts  to  restore  circula- 
tion.     We   paused    not    for   sights   when    once    ar- 


204  WINTER  INDIA 

rived  there.  "What  were  Akbar's  outer  walls,  his 
treasury,  mint,  or  any  lot  of  ruined  stonework  to 
us  until  we  could  reach  the  cold  splendors  of  the 
dak  bangia,  once  the  Record  Office  and  Akbar's 
House  of  Dreams,  and  thaw  our  fingers  over  the 
cook-house  charcoals?  We  shut  the  mullioned  win- 
dows in  the  cliff-like  outer  walls  commanding  the 
vast  prospect  of  the  plain,  and  supplemented  the 
slight  and  shadowy,  the  sketchy,  impressionist  im- 
itation of  a  breakfast  of  the  Agra  hotel  with  scald- 
ing chocolate  and  really  hot  toast,  and  embarked 
the  sjonpathetic  old  khansamah  on  a  more  solid 
tiffin  than  he  had  contemplated.  AVe  proposed  to 
stoke  up  with  all  the  bodily  fuel  possible  for  the 
return  drive  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind. 

A  troop  of  guides  lay  in  wait  for  us,  and  luck 
let  us  have  another  of  those  stupid  parrots  who, 
in  embroidered  caps  and  winding  chuddas,  mis- 
lead one  over  all  the  show-places  of  India.  This  one 
stuttered— may  all  others  know  and  avoid  him  by 
that  sign!— and,  like  all  of  his  gild,  reversed  the 
guide-book  order  of  sight-seeing.  We  had  already 
suffered  enough  in  that  way,  and  we  ordered  him 
to  right  about  face  and  march  to  the  Turkish 
queen's  house,  first  on  the  Murray  list  and  first 
object  before  the  Hall  of  Records.  ''But,  lady- 
ship, I  wish  f-f-first  to  sh-sh-show  you  the  mosque 
and  my  ancestor's  grave."  But  we  wanted  none 
of  his  ancestors,  except  in  their  regular  order. 
"Oh,  your  ladyship,  your  ladyship,  take  me,  take 
me.  God  is  good.  Take  me,  take  me,"  mumbled  a 
toothless  collection  of  wrinkles  in  white  grave-clothes. 


AKBAR,  THE  GREATEST  MOGUL  OF  THEM  ALL  205 

"I  know  the  palace  well.  I  know  the  Turkish 
queen.  I  showed  the  Prince  of  Wales  all  Fateh- 
pur  Sikri. ' '  And  then  guides  grew  thick  and  thicker 
around  us,  rising  from  the  very  flagstones.  They 
whined  in  procession  after  us  across  the  court,  and 
it  was  easy  to  make  compact  with  our  guide,  who 
was  almost  exploding  with  spasms  of  stuttering 
wrath  at  the  interlopers.  He  was  to  lead  us  in 
the  straight  and  direct  path  of  the  "Murray  book," 
and  receive  bakshish  in  proportion  to  his  success 
in  keeping  his  rivals  away  and  in  omitting  his  "lady- 
ships." 

As  we  wandered  in  admiration  through  the  sun- 
warmed  courts,  sheltered  from  the  biting  blast,  our 
benumbed  senses  revived,  and  we  warmed  to  real 
enthusiasm  over  this  "romance  in  stone,"  over  all 
the  exquisite  fantasies,  the  veritable  maisons  hijoux 
Akbar  had  built  for  his  favorite  wives.  The  Great 
Mogul  was  as  eclectic  and  as  far-reaching  in  his  con- 
sort collecting  as  in  his  religion,  and  we  were  shown 
the  house  of  his  Turkish  queen  Miriam;  that  of  his 
Christian  Portuguese  wife ;  the  house  of  Birbal,  his 
Hindu  wife,  and  a  great  zenana.  Of  the  same  order 
of  lavish  ornamentation  is  the  wonderful  council- 
chamber  with  its  central  pillar,  all  these  structures 
carved  over  every  inch  of  surface  with  the  finest 
and  most  intricate  ornament,  geometrical  patterns, 
and  traceries.  Outside,  inside,  over  all  the  walls  and 
ceilings  spreads  the  revel  of  ornament,  and  the  win- 
dows hold  perforated  stone  and  marble  screens  as 
fine  as  woven  reed-work.  This  was  the  real  In- 
dia of  the  imagination,  the  setting  for  "The  Nau- 


206  WINTER  INDIA 

lahka,"  every  part  of  the  carved  labyrinth  a  scene 
for  melodrama.  There  was  one  great  five-story 
pavilion,  strangely  like  Akbar's  tomb  in  design,  each 
pillared  and  open  hall  of  fairy  lightness,  with  a 
row  of  fantastic  bell-cupolas  on  top.  There  the 
zenana  women  took  the  air,  and  near  by  was  Akbar  's 
great  pachisi-board  inlaid  in  a  court  pavement, 
where  he  played  the  game  with  his  vizier,  using 
slave-girls  for  pawns,  and  the  successful  one  keeping 
the  beauties  he  won.  On  the  seat  overlooking  this 
checker-board,  Akbar  doubtless  flourished  his  fa- 
mous bon-bon  box,  with  its  harmless  delights  in  one 
compartment,  perfumed  poison  in  the  other.  After 
having  dealt  death  to  many  courtiers  deliberately, 
he  accidentally  took  the  wrong  sugar-plum  himself 
one  day,  and  ended  his  life  in  the  most  satisfactory, 
retributive,  story-book  way. 

Our  guide  finally  led  us  through  the  inlaid  gate 
to  the  court  of  the  mosque,  and  was  about  to  launch 
full-lunged  on  his  ancestors  of  honorable  burial 
when  our  eyes  fell  upon  the  little  white  marble  tomb 
of  Selim  Chisti,  the  hermit  saint  and  local  genius, 
whose  prophecies  led  Akbar  to  build  this  palace  and 
city  on  the  arid  plain.  The  saint's  tomb  is  the  most 
exquisite  thing  of  its  kind  in  India,  a  tiny  marble 
jewel-box,  hardly  larger  than  an  elephant's  howdah, 
a  filigree  reliquary,  with  fine  lattice  walls,  fantastic 
brackets,  and  a  domed  roof  shining  in  the  sunlight. 
The  ebony  doors  admit  one  to  the  tomb,  where  os- 
trich eggs  hang  and  ebony  panels  are  inlaid  with 
mother-of-pearl.  One  looks  through  the  marble 
screens,  as  fine  as  basketry,  at  the  Indian  sky,  as 


AKBAR,  THE  GREATEST  MOGUL  OF  THEM  ALL  209 

clearly  blue  as  sapphire.  We  forgot  the  inlaid  arches 
and  the  tiled  facings  of  the  mosque,  which  is  a  copy 
of  the  mosque  at  Mecca,  and  turned  only  to  look 
again  and  again  at  the  tiny  white  tomb  shining  like 
a  frost  creation  in  the  empty  stone  court,  the  reality 
infinitely  more  satisfactory  than  even  Vereshcha- 
gin's  painting  had  led  us  to  expect.  In  front  of  this 
little  prettiness  the  great  gate  of  Victory  opens  to 
the  plain  and  the  ruined  city,  a  broad  staircase  lead- 
ing down  to  the  rubbish-strewn  common.  We  went 
through  the  great  domed  arch,  the  doors  studded 
with  votive  nail-heads  and  horseshoes,  and  from  the 
foot  of  the  staircase  had  the  intended  view  of  this 
gate  which  Fergusson  calls  "noble  beyond  that  of 
any  portal  attached  to  any  mosque  in  India,  perhaps 
in  the  whole  world."  Across  the  front  of  this  gate 
Akbar  inlaid  the  famous  inscription  :  ' '  Isa  [Jesus] , 
on  whom  be  peace,  said :  '  The  world  is  a  bridge,  pass 
over  it,  but  build  no  house  on  it.  The  world  endures 
but  an  hour,  spend  it  in  devotion. '  "  There  is  a  great 
green,  oval  well,  with  a  parapet  and  arched  chambers 
surrounding  it,  close  beside  the  steps  and  the  high, 
battlemented  walls.  Despite  the  keen  and  wintry 
air,  lean  men  and  boys,  shivering  in  a  few  flutters 
of  cotton  drapery,  offered  to  jump  the  eighty  feet 
from  the  battlements  into  the  well.  While  we  de- 
murred, covered  with  goose-flesh  at  the  mere  idea, 
there  was  a  shout  from  above,  a  brown  figure  shot 
out  into  the  air,  whirling  his  arms  frantically  to 
keep  the  body  upright,  and  dropped  feet  foremost 
into  the  pool.  The  green  scum  closed  over  him,  and 
before  we  could  recover  breath  the  black  head  swam 


210  WINTER  INDIA 

to  the  steps,  wound  on  a  dry  sheet,  and  came,  all 
green  and  shivering,  to  claim  a  rupee  for  the  feat. 
He  dashed  instantly  out  of  sight,  reappeared  on  the 
battlements,  and  made  a  second  plummet  drop 
into  the  well.  Only  the  fact  that  those  two  dearly 
earned  rupees  assured  him  food  for  the  day  could 
ease  one's  conscience  for  aiding  and  abetting  such 
inhuman  sport.  Two  Scotch  tourists,  who  had 
watched  the  cold  plunger  from  the  head  of  the  steps, 
refused  to  pay  a  rupee  apiece,  or  even  one  anna,  to 
the  "poor  man  with  family  to  feed."  We  could 
hear  them  say  that  they  had  not  engaged  the  man 
to  jump,  the  ladies  had  arranged  that.  "But  you 
saw  me.  You  watched  me.  You  all  looked  at  me," 
howled  the  jumper,  following  them.  And  the  Scotch- 
men said:  "Those  Americans  can  just  pay  more, 
then.    We  won't  give  you  an  anna.    Jao!" 

After  the  arctic  drive  back  to  Agra,  we  had  time 
only  for  a  cup  of  scalding  tea  before  hurrying  to 
the  Taj  to  witness  the  most  wonderful  sunset  of 
all,  an  amber  afterglow  illuminating  every  inner 
curve  and  recess  and  dispelling  all  shadows,  the  light 
seeming  to  radiate  from  the  glowing  marble,  to 
emanate  from  the  white  surface  itself.  As  if  that 
six-mile  pilgrimage,  added  to  our  forty-four-mile 
drive  of  the  day,  were  not  enough,  the  clear  sparkle 
of  the  stars  and  the  nipping  air  of  that  night  sug- 
gested a  different  Taj,  and  after  dinner  we  rattled 
down  the  Strand  Road  to  see  by  moonlight  such  a 
glitteringly  white,  splendidly  snowy  frost-palace  as 
we  had  not  dreamed  of  finding  in  India. 

We  essayed  a  rainy  day  of  rest,  taking  our  ease 


AKBAR,  THE  GREATEST  MOGUL  OF  THEM  ALL  211 

at  our  inn,  myself  in  a  superior,  sunless,  fireless, 
cheerless  room,  which  was  but  a  long,  whitewashed 
vault  with  a  carefully  curtained  door  opening  on 
a  brick  portico.  Drafts  that  were  small  gales 
blew  through,  making  reading,  writing,  or  anything 
but  sneezing  impossible.  The  peddlers  marked  us 
for  their  own  that  day,  and  every  few  moments  there 
was  a  tap  on  the  glass  door,  a  brown  hand  was  thrust 
in  with  some  object  for  sale;  and  a  plaintive  "mem- 
sahib"  or  "ladyship"  distracted  one.  "Please  buy. 
Please  buy.  I  am  poor  man,"  rang  in  my  ears  all 
day,  and  the  transfer  of  packs  from  the  bricks  out- 
side to  the  dirty  matting  within  was  accomplished 
imperceptibly.  I  was  first  aware  of  some  pleading, 
whining  creature  with  a  shop  spread  on  the  floor 
around  him— silver,  jewelry,  embroideries,  shawls, 
beetle-winged  gauzes,  gay  pulkharries,  and  souvenir 
spoons.  Every  day  a  huge  damascened  fork  or  tri- 
dent was  offered  me  as  I  passed  in  or  out, — whether 
a  dagger  or  an  elephant  goad  I  could  not  say.  "Oh, 
yes,  your  ladyship,"  said  the  oily  one  in  answer, 
"this  is  toast-fork.  Very  nice.  Very  comfortable 
thing  for  traveling.  Please  buy.  I  am  poor  man." 
But  he  and  his  tribe  were  ordered  to  begone,  and 
as  the  toast-master  shuffled  out  with  his  bundle  he 
paused  at  the  threshold  to  slip  into  his  Mohamme- 
dan shoes,  using  the  big  fork  for  a  shoe-horn. 
"Very  useful.  See,  your  ladyship,"  he  said,  adjust- 
ing the  second  shoe  with  the  combination  toasting- 
fork,    "Silputs  [slippers]  help  on,  also." 

When  the  sky  cleared  in  the  late  afternoon  we 
betook  ourselves  to  the  fort  to  await  the  rose-red 


212  WINTER  INDIA 

sunset  that  the  humid  atmosphere  promised.  The 
old  chuprassy  welcomed  us  to  the  Jasmine  Tower, 
and  gave  us  wicker  stools  that  we  might  comfortably 
watch  the  white  bubbles  beyond  the  green  fore- 
ground flame  to  rose-red  and  then  fade  away,  effaced 
in  the  gray  mists  that  rolled  up  the  river,  presage 
of  the  deluge  rain  that  followed.  The  keeper  brought 
torches  and  led  us  down  to  the  labyrinth  of  dark 
chambers  and  vaults  that  underlie  the  zenana  and 
the  Grape  Garden.  Six  thousand  people  found  ref- 
uge in  the  fort  during  the  Mutiny,  and  then  all  this 
underground  world  was  explored,  with  its  oubliettes 
and  long  passages  reaching  to  the  moats  and  the 
water-gate.  The  rooms  we  saw  were  the  prisons  for 
zenana  offenders,  and  by  dumb  show  and  much 
mixed  language  we  were  informed  that  it  was  Ak- 
bar's  wives  who  suffered  most  often  here  by  torture 
and  the  rope,  the  sack,  and  the  drop  down  the  echo- 
ing well.  No  screams  could  be  heard  in  the  sunny 
Grape  Garden,  nor  in  the  beautiful  audience-hall; 
and,  after  Akbar's  career  of  domestic  tyranny,  it 
was  fitting  that  his  son,  Jahangir,  should  be  ruled 
by  his  Persian  wife,  Nur  Jahan,  and  that  Shah 
Jahan,  the  grandson,  should  worship  in  life,  and 
after  her  death,  Mumtaz-i-Mahal. 


CHAPTEK   XVI 

DELHI 

,T  was  in  the  regular  order  of  discomfort 
that  we  should  leave  Agra  late  at  night 

and  reach  Delhi  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
|V    morning;    the   last   straw   lay   in   the 

fact  that  we  departed  in  a  pouring 
rain  and  made  the  midnight  change  at  Tundla 
Junction  in  a  cloud-burst.  Fires  had  warmed  the 
rooms  (which  we  reached  by  a  roof  or  terrace) 
when  we  arrived  at  the  much  commended  Delhi 
hotel,  and  we  fell  asleep  to  dream  of  Madura 
noondays  until  an  unusual  hour  of  the  morning. 
Then  we  found  that  the  rooms  had  no  windows, 
so  that  when  the  doors  were  closed  and  the  fire- 
places heaped  with  wood,  we  had  easily  enjoyed 
the  climate  of  the  tropics.  That  hotel,  named  for 
a  great  viceroy,  was  by  far  the  worst,  the  most  for- 
lorn, run-dowTi,  and  dilapidated  of  any  we  found 
up-country.  The  drawing-room  was  a  muddle  of 
broken  furniture,  of  dusty  and  disorderly  draperies, 
the  dining-room  infragrant  and  time-stained,  and 
the  manager— there  are  no  landlords  or  innkeepers 
in  British  realms  any  more— a  listless,  depressed, 
poor  white  creature,  a  definite  failure  in  life,  who 

213 


214  WINTER  INDIA 

roamed  the  portico  in  pajamas  and  long  ulster, 
smoking  a  German  student  pipe.  We  removed  forth- 
with to  another  hotel,  that  had  once  been  a  splendid 
official  residence.  Our  rooms  opened  by  long  win- 
dows upon  a  cement  terrace  flush  with  the  battle- 
ments of  the  city  walls,  and  from  that  high  para- 
pet we  looked  down  upon  the  Jumna  and  green 
wooded  spaces  where  the  jackals  howled  all  night 
and  wherein  are  laid  some  of  the  scenes  of  "On 
the  Face  of  the  Waters."  The  entrance  portico 
of  the  mansion  was  used  as  a  dining-room,  the  great 
stone  arches  partly  closed  at  night  by  bamboo  blinds, 
ventilated  curtains  that  swayed  and  swung  in  the 
drafts  and  breezes  which  blew  over  us  as  we  dined 
there,  practically  out  of  doors,  on  those  cold  Janu- 
ary nights,  with  the  humidity  great  and  the  ther- 
mometer registering  38  to  40  degrees. 

"It  is  a  land  of  misery,"  cried  a  great  American 
litterateur  who  was  doing  India  with  a  rapidity  un- 
equaled  by  any  personally  conducted  tourist.  "All 
I  want  to  do  is  to  get  out  of  it ;  to  get  away ;  to  get 
something  an  American  stomach  is  used  to  eating; 
to  get  some  Apollinaris  instead  of  this  hygienic  soda ; 
to  get  warm  again.  If  I  get  within  one  hundred 
miles  of  any  place,  I  will  say  I  have  seen  it.  I  don't 
want  any  more  architecture  at  this  price."  And 
this  tirade  was  in  the  same  key  and  vein  indulged  in 
by  all  the  coughing,  sneezing,  rheumatic,  and  neu- 
ralgic tourists.  All  were  cross,  half  ill,  and  thor- 
oughly homesick  in  this  chill  land  of  supposed 
tropic  splendors. 

When  the  sour  mists  or  the  frost  hazes  of  those 


DELHI  215 

Delhi  mornings  had  cleared  away,  we  had  sunshine 
that  mellowed  grumblers  to  amiability,  and  they 
basked  in  the  hot  beams  of  noonday;  but  gloom 
settled  on  them  with  the  damp  chill  of  sunset,  and 
there  were  the  same  depressed  and  depressing  groups 
huddled  before  the  few  hissing  twigs  in  the  fireplaces 
of  the  chill  white  caves  of  rooms.  Then  the  jackals 
came  under  our  windows  and  laughed  and  shrieked 
hysterically,  as  well  they  might,  at  calling  such  a 
tour  pleasure  travel. 

The  old  capital  of  the  Moguls  has  great  charm 
in  sunshine,  and  Delhi's  main  thoroughfare,  the 
Chandni  Chauk  (Silver  Square),  was  the  most  bril- 
liant and  spectacular  place  we  had  seen.  All  native 
life  was  crowded  into  that  street,  which  is  a  contin- 
uous market-place  for  a  mile,  with  rainbow  crowds 
of  people  streaming  up  and  down,  buying  and  selling 
everything  from  crown  diamonds  and  jeweled  jade 
to  sheepskins  and  raw  meat.  The  street  has  run 
with  blood  many  times,  and  has  been  strewn  and 
stacked  with  corpses.  Nadir  Shah  put  one  hundred 
thousand  to  death,  Timur  had  done  worse,  and  the 
IMahrattas  were  the  worst  of  all;  so  that  the 
butchery  after  the  Mutiny  siege  of  Delhi  was  but  an- 
other regrettable  incident  in  its  history.  At  the  far 
end  of  the  street  towers  the  red  sandstone  gateway 
of  Shah  Jahan's  fort,  and  driving  in  under  this 
portal  fit  for  kings  and  triumphal  armies,  we  found 
sepoys  lounging  on  charpoys  by  the  guard-house 
door,  tunics  unbuttoned,  turbans  awry  and  at  loose 
ends,  and  INIoslem  shoes  hanging  from  one  bare  toe 
— the  sa7is  gene  of  the  race  undisturbed  by  the  noble 

12 


216  WINTER  INDIA 

environment  or  the  contrasting  presence  of  the 
tramping  sentry  on  duty,  turbaned  and  accoutred 
to  perfection,  spindle  legs  wound  with  smooth  put- 
ties, and  the  enormous  English  shoes  blacked  to  a 
drill-sergeant's  dream.  Such  loungers  at  the  guard- 
house door  are  on  view  at  every  show  fort  and 
palace  in  India,  incongruous,  disillusioning,  but 
thereby  the  real  thing.  Incongruity  is  the  regular 
order  in  India,  splendor  and  shabbiness,  dirt  and 
riches,  luxury  and  squalor  always  going  together. 
We  were  free  to  roam  the  courts  and  garden  spaces 
of  the  palace  unhindered,  from  Shah  Jahan's  open 
audience-hall,  or  music-room,  with  its  panels  of 
Florentine  mosaic  on  black  marble  ground,  to  that 
inner  throne-room,  the  most  splendid  in  the  world. 
This  peerless  Diwan-i-Khas,  one  mass  of  rich  deco- 
ration from  the  inlaid  floor  to  the  golden  ceiling, 
was  worthy  setting  for  the  Peacock  Throne.  The 
renegade  Frenchman  or  Italian  who  planned  the 
palaces  of  Shah  Jahan,  and  the  skilled  workmen 
brought  from  all  the  centers  of  Mohammedan  lux- 
ury, made  the  Delhi  palace  equal  in  decorative 
details  to  the  Agra  palace  and  the  Taj.  "If 
there  is  on  earth  an  Eden  of  bliss,  it  is  this, 
it  is  this,  it  is  this,"  was  appropriately  inlaid  in 
Persian  letters  in  this  throne-room,  whose  square 
columns,  arches,  spandrils,  frieze,  and  moldings 
are  decorated  with  exquisite  pietra  dura.  A  small 
dais  shows  where  stood  the  Peacock  Throne,  that 
low,  square  chair  completely  sheathed  in  rubies, 
pearls,  diamonds,  emeralds,  and  other  stones,  the 
Koh-i-nur  one  of  the  peacock's  eyes,  and  a  life-sized 


DELHI  217 

parrot  cut  from  a  single  emerald  its  crowning  orna- 
ment. That  fabled  emerald  parrot,  like  the  so-called 
emerald  Buddha  at  Bangkok,  was  undoubtedly  noth- 
ing but  a  very  fine  and  clear  piece  of  /'ti  tsui  jade, 
but  it  went  with  all  the  other  loot  that  Nadir  Shah 
carried  away  in  1739— loot  the  value  of  which 
amounted  to  thirty-eight  million  pounds,  and  which 
was  scattered  by  the  Kurds  when  he  was  murdered. 
India  was  drained  of  its  riches  then,  for  no  good 
end.  After  Nadir  Shah  had  gone  his  way  with 
the  Peacock  and  nine  other  jeweled  thrones,  this 
palace  suffered  neglect  as  well  as  sacking.  When 
Lord  Auckland's  sisters  saw  it  in  1838,  the  old 
King  of  Delhi  sat  in  a  neglected  garden,  his  own 
dirty  soldiers  lounged  on  dirty  charpoys  in  the  beau- 
tiful inlaid  bath-rooms,  and  the  precious  inlays  were 
being  stolen,  bit  by  bit,  from  the  rooms  of  the 
princes.  One  regrets  the  destruction  that  f (flowed 
the  Mutiny,  when  the  zenana  and  whole  labyrinths 
of  guest-rooms  were  torn  away  to  make  space  for 
barracks.  Sir  James  Fergusson  has  dealt  with  these 
destroying  British  barbarians  very  thoroughly  in 
"Indian  and  Eastern  Architecture"  (Vol.  II, p. 208), 
and  hands  on  to  immortality  the  name  of  Sir  John 
Jones,  who  tore  up  the  platform  of  the  Peacock 
Throne  and  divided  it  into  sections  which  he  sold  as 
table-tops,  the  pair  now  in  the  India  Museum  at 
London  having  fetched  him  five  hundred  pounds. 

The  audience-halls,  the  baths,  and  the  rooms 
around  the  Diwan-i-Khas  were  repaired  and  restored 
at  great  expense  in  preparation  for  the  Prince  of 
Wales's  visit  in  1876,  and  close  watchfulness  has 


218  WINTER  INDIA 

maintained  them  in  that  condition.  One  can  only 
wish  that  for  completeness'  sake  a  glass  copy  of  the 
Peacock  Throne  might  be  installed  in  the  original's 
place.  Tourists  would  gladly  contribute  their  annas 
to  that  worthy  end. 

The  Jama  Mas j id,  the  largest  and  certainly  the 
most  imposing  mosque  in  India,  lifts  its  minarets 
across  a  great  park  where  troops  of  great  apes  race 
madly,  alert  for  the  pious  Hindus,  whom  one  often 
sees  ostentatiously  feeding  them  inferior  boiled  rice, 
"to  acquire  merit."  The  great  gateway  of  the 
mosque,  high  on  a  terraced  platform,  is  second  only 
to  Akbar's  Gate  of  Victory,  and,  opening  formerly 
only  for  the  Mogul  emperor,  swings  widely  now 
when  the  Viceroy  visits  it.  On  Friday  mornings 
ten  and  twelve  thousand  people  worship  there ;  in  fes- 
tival times  four  times  as  many  assemble.  The  priests 
are  friendly,  and  in  one  of  the  lesser  minarets  show 
one  richly  illuminated  copies  of  the  Koran,  Moham- 
med's slipper  filled  with  jasmine  blossoms,  and  finally 
one  henna-red  hair  from  the  beard  of  the  Prophet. 
There  is  a  busy  market  around  the  steps  of  the  great 
gateway  on  certain  days,  when  grotesque  two-story 
camel-wagons  bring  in  country  produce ;  dealers  in 
poultry  hold  one  side  of  the  terrace  steps  and  bird- 
fanciers  the  other.  We  had  eaten  mutton-chops 
from  Tuticorin  northward,  but  had  never  seen  a  live 
sheep  until  we  heard  its  familiar  voice  by  Jama 
Mas j id's  steps.  But  what  flocks  of  goats  we  had 
seen  in  pastures,  on  country  roads  and  city  streets! 
"It  is  poultry,"  said  the  bearer  as  we  regarded  the 
fat-tailed  sheep  with  curiosity,  his  application  of 


KUTAB  MINAK, 


DELHI  221 

the  word  ''poultry"  meaning  tame  or  domestic  as 
distinguished  from  ''jungle,"  which  defines  a  wild 
fowl  or  animal.  "Yes,  the  peacock  is  poultry,"  he 
answered  quickly,  but  when  we  inquired  about  the 
elephants  and  camels  standing  round  he  hesitated. 
"Yes.  Certainly.  The  elephant  once  was  jungle, 
and  the  camble  too ;  but  now  they  both  are  poultry." 

The  little  Jain  temple  and  the  Black  Temple  of 
the  Hindus  are  sanctuaries  of  other  Delhi  sects, 
but  we  forgot  conventional  sights  and  the  rivalry 
of  religions  when  we  met  a  wedding  procession  in 
the  labyrinth  of  streets  in  that  quarter.  The  horses 
wore  gold,  silver,  and  jeweled  bridles,  head-stalls 
and  necklaces  to  match,  and  gold-embroidered  cloths 
and  trappings.  The  bridegroom's  brother  was  a 
dazzling,  kincob-clad  person,  jeweled  to  distraction, 
with  wreaths  and  tassels  of  jasmine  covering  him 
from  crown  to  waist,  and  the  bridegroom  was  twice 
as  splendid.  The  populace  gaped  and  ran  after  the 
cavalcade,  and  half-naked  beggars  tiocked  with  ex- 
tended palms.  ' '  Jao !  Jao ! ' '  said  the  bridegroom 's 
brother  in  a  voice  to  make  a  policeman  tremble ;  and 
swish!  came  his  jeweled  whip  on  the  bare  shoulders 
of  one  insistent  petitioner.  With  a  yelp  of  pain  and 
a  spiritless  whine,  the  beggar  slunk  away. 

Delhi  remains  the  center  of  all  Indian  art  indus- 
tries. The  most  skilful  jewelers  and  gem-cutters, 
painters,  carvers,  embroiderers,  and  craftsmen  whose 
creations  could  tempt  the  purse  or  minister  to  the 
luxury  of  the  greater  and  lesser  Moguls,  have  gath- 
ered there  for  centuries,  and  trade  habits  are  but 
slowly  broken.     Along  Chandni  Chauk  plump  mer- 


222  WINTER   INDIA 

chants  in  snow-white  clothes  and  tiny  jeweler's  tur- 
bans invite  one  to  their  white,  washed,  felt-floored 
inner  rooms;  and  there,  treading  cat-like  in  stock- 
inged feet,  they  unroll  gold  and  silver  embroideries, 
Kashmir  shawls,  and  "  camble 's-hair "  stuffs,  and 
cover  the  last  inches  of  floor  space  with  jewels. 
Necklaces,  girdles,  and  a  queen's  ornaments  are 
drawn  from  battered  boxes,  scraps  of  paper,  cotton 
cloth,  or  old  flannel.  Nothing  seems  quite  as  in- 
congruous in  this  land  of  the  misfit  and  the  incon- 
gruous as  the  way  in  which  the  jewels  of  a  raja 
are  produced  from  old  biscuit-tins,  pickle-bottles, 
and  marmalade-jars.  One  buys  the  gems  of  a 
temple  goddess,  and  they  are  laid  in  grimy  cotton- 
wool and  packed  in  rusty  little  tin  boxes  of  a  crudity 
inconceivable.  While  on  the  claim  the  Klondike 
miner  considers  the  makeshift  of  a  baking-powder 
box,  as  a  safe  deposit  for  his  nuggets  and  dust,  as 
a  huge  joke ;  but  the  Hindu  jeweler  does  it  with  no 
sense  of  the  unfitness  of  things,  of  relative  propri- 
ety in  splendor.  "Memsahib  does  not  like  tin 
box?  Very  well.  See!"  and  the  ruby  necklace  was 
wrapped  in  a  bit  of  newspaper,  and  put  in  a  broken 
pasteboard  box  that  had  held  a  druggist's  pre- 
scription. When  they  have  covered  the  floor  with 
their  most  valuable  stuffs,  the  shopmen  walk  over 
them  without  compunction,  pull  them  here  and 
there,  and  throw  them  in  heaps  into  the  corners. 
When  this  happens  several  times  a  day,  and  the 
traps  are  bundled  to  and  from  the  hotels  night  and 
morning,  it  is  small  wonder  that  everything  offered 
one  is  mussy,  wrinkled,  and  shop-worn.     Despite  the 


DELHI  223 

lures  and  promises  of  the  toy  turban  tribe,  no 
important  pieces  of  carved  or  jeweled  jade  were 
seen.  To  them  any  green  stone  was  jade,  and  under 
that  name  they  brought  out  serpentine,  bowenite, 
and  chloro-melanite— anything  soft  and  easily 
worked  that  would  look  as  well.  Three  generations 
of  one  family  are  no  longer  employed  in  carving 
one  jade  bowl,  as  in  Mogul  times.  Art  is  fleeting 
now,  and  the  lapidaries  want  quick  sales  and  as 
large  returns  as  the  tourist's  enlightenment  permits. 
One  may  handle  these  Delhi  jewels  by  the  hour 
and  not  see  a  flawless  stone,  a  spherical  pearl,  or 
any  string  of  pearls  matched  perfectly  in  size,  shape, 
skin,  or  luster ;  and  one  moves  in  and  breathes  such 
an  atmosphere  of  jewels  in  Delhi  that  he  soon  re- 
gards precious  stones  as  the  usual,  serious  accom- 
paniment of  daily  life.  A  prosaic  tourist,  never 
given  to  such  weaknesses,  soon  finds  himself  hanging 
and  haggling  over  jewels,  buying  unset  stones  and 
gewgaws  to  indiscretion.  From  the  earliest  break- 
fast hour  to  the  last  home-coming  at  dusk,  and  until 
the  train  bears  him  away  from  the  station  platform, 
open  jewel-boxes  and  rows  of  necklaces  spread  on 
cloths  or  shawl-ends  are  put  before  him.  Some  in- 
sinuating Lai  This  or  Lai  That,  with  caste-marked 
brow  and  tiny  turban,  is  always  salaaming  and  beg- 
ging him  to  buy  his  blue  ferozees  (turquoises),  or 
necklaces  of  the  nine  lucky  stones.  A  tap  at  the 
door,  and  it  opens  to  show  a  brown  face  and  a  tassel 
of  necklaces  swinging  from  a  brown  hand ;  and  in 
time  the  victim  is  hypnotized  by  the  glittering  ob- 
jects.   There  is  bitter  trade  rivalry  among  the  jew- 


224  WINTER   INDIA 

elers  and  their  touts,  and  one  cannot  visit  the  shop 
or  buy  of  one  of  the  Lais  without  being  denounced 
and  upbraided  for  partiality  by  all  the  other  Lais. 
"Please  come  my  shop.  Please  buy  my  shop.  I  am 
only  honest  man.  I  am  poor  man,"  said  one  oily 
tongue,  putting  his  fingers  to  his  mouth  in  dumb 
show  of  rice-eating.  "Yes,  yes,"  we  said  to  the 
importunate  as  we  drove  away  from  the  hotel,  and 
a  fierce-eyed,  viper ish-looking  Hindu  made  a  flying 
leap  to  the  other  step  of  the  carriage  and  hissed: 
"Don't  go  his  shop.  He  is  bad  man.  He  cheat. 
He  lie.  His  ferozees  are  all  glass,  chalk.  I  speak 
true.  I  am  honest  man.  I  have  true  stones.  I  am 
poor  man.  Please  buy  my  shop."  An  emphatic 
"  Jao !"  made  him  drop  away  from  the  carriage  step. 
Winding  up  his  loose  end  of  red  shawl,  he  went  back 
to  the  door-step  and  squatted  there  in  apparent  fra- 
ternity with  the  wicked  rival— both  blood-brothers 
in  lying  and  cheating,  both  waiting  for  fresh  prey, 
the  tourist  the  righteous  victim  for  such  swindlers 
in  all  countries. 

After  much  looking  and  comparing,  a  friend  of 
that  Indian  winter  bought  a  ruby  necklace,  and 
as  she  stowed  it  away  in  her  inside  strong  pocket 
her  particular  Lai  said,  "Please,  ladyship,  do  not 
show  any  one  here  in  Delhi.  Let  no  man  know  that 
I  have  sold,  that  you  have  bought  my  'niklass.' 
Those  bad  fellows  at  hotel  do  something  if  they 
know  I  sell."  We  strolled  for  an  hour  along  the 
Chandni  Chauk,  when  we  were  met  by  our  servant 
with  a  closed  carriage  and  drove  to  the  Ridge.  As 
the   horses  slowed   down   for  the  long  hill   climb, 


DELHI  225 

the  box  was  opened  for  a  look  at  the  new  purchase. 
Hardly  had  the  owner  wound  it  over  her  hand, 
when  the  kincob  turban  and  viper  countenance  of 
the  rival  jeweler  was  thrust  in  the  open  window. 
There  was  an  "Ah"  of  such  venomous  rage  that  we 
screamed  in  alarm.  The  head  vanished,  and  this 
sleuth-hound  of  jewelers,  who  had  shadowed  us  all 
day  and  clung  to  the  back  of  the  carriage,  was  seen 
speeding  like  a  deer  back  to  the  city. 

"Oh,  I  found  Delhi  so  sad,  so  depressing.  All 
those  scenes  of  the  Mutiny,  you  know— the  Kashmir 
Gate  and  the  Eidge,  don't  you  know.  It  was  so 
terrible  that  I  was  really  glad  to  get  away,"  said 
an  English  visitor.  The  ruby  collar  and  the  detec- 
tive jeweler  had  put  us  beyond  any  depression  inci- 
dent to  the  visit  to  the  Ridge,  familiar  as  is  its  his- 
tory when  one  has  read  Lord  Roberts's  "Forty-one 
Years  in  India"  and  Mrs.  Steele's  "On  the  Face  of 
the  Waters."  At  Delhi,  too,  one  feels  that  there 
have  been  too  many  sieges  and  reliefs  in  these  later 
days  for  the  events  of  1857  to  be  dinned  into  one 
quite  so  endlessly.  Newspaper  readers  are  all  stra- 
tegical experts  now,  and  they  balance  and  measure 
the  horrors  and  heroisms  of  the  siege  of  Delhi  against 
the  modern  ones;  match  the  storming  of  the  Kash- 
mir Gate  with  the  glorious  storming  of  the  South 
Gate  of  Tientsin  and  of  the  East  Gate  of  Peking 
by  the  Japanese  in  the  China  campaign  of  1900. 

From  the  Ridge  one  looks  down  upon  the  great 
plain  where  the  annual  camp  of  exercise,  or  the 
great  military  manoeuvers,  are  held  each  year.  The 
great  durbar  or  Delhi  meeting  of  1877  was  held  on 


226  WINTER  INDIA 

this  same  plain,  when  Lord  Lytton  proclaimed  the 
Queen  of  England  as  Empress  of  India  in  the  pres- 
ence of  all  the  feudatory  princes  and  an  assemblage 
of  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  people.  The 
plain  was  the  scene  also  of  the  greater  durbar  of 
1903,  when  Lord  Curzon  proclaimed  King  Edward 
VII  of  England  as  Emperor  of  India,  with  a  pagean- 
try and  splendor  unapproached  in  modern  times, — 
the  most  magnificent  state  ceremony  that  has  ever 
been  seen. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


OLD   DELHI 


NE  gets  the  full  sense  of  antiquity  in 
driving  south  from  Delhi  for  eleven 
miles  over  a  plain  strewn  with  the 
ruins  of  seven  earlier  cities  that  pre- 
ceded this  modern  Delhi,  or  Shah  Ja- 
hanabad.  Dwellings  have  crumbled  away,  but  forts 
and  tombs  have  withstood  the  ages,  and  there  is  a  very 
feast  of  graveyards  all  the  way  to  the  Kutab  minar. 
Hoariest  of  all  the  memorials  is  the  carved  stone  col- 
umn of  Asoka  (240  B.C.), inscribed  with  the  Buddha's 
precepts  a-gainst  the  taking  of  life,  and  which  stands 
in  Tughlak's  ruined  fort  at  Firozabad.  At  ruined 
Indrapat  are  the  remains  of  the  lovely  inlaid 
mosque  and  the  tall  tower  from  which  the  emperor 
Humayum  fell  while  studying  the  stars ;  and  near 
by  is  the  splendid  red  sandstone  mausoleum  erected 
for  him  by  his  widow  and  his  son  Akbar.  A  cen- 
tury after  its  erection,  this  domed  tomb  of  Huma- 
yum furnished  the  model  for  the  Taj  Mahal,  and  one 
quickly  notes  the  main  points  of  resemblance  between 
this  massive  red  building  and  the  white  dream  at 
Agra.  Humayum 's  tomb  stands  upon  the  same  sort 
of  high  platform,  but  lacks  the  slender  minarets 

227 


228  WINTER  INDIA 

at  the  corners.  The  red  building  and  its  white 
marble  dome  are  larger  than  the  more  delicately 
modeled,  the  more  ornate,  poetic,  and  feminine 
structure  at  Agra.  The  last  scene  of  the  Mutiny- 
was  played  here  when  Hobson's  men  overtook  Baha- 
dur Shah,  the  fugitive  Delhi  king,  and  returned  the 
next  day  for  the  princes,  shot  them,  and  exposed 
their  bodies  in  the  blood-soaked,  corpse-strewn 
Chandni  Chauk.  Bahadur  Shah  lived  in  exile  at 
Rangoon  for  forty  years,  and  his  son,  childless  and 
born  in  exile,  a  harmless  nonentity,  was  permitted 
to  return  to  India  for  the  durbar  of  1903. 

At  Humayum's  tomb  we  left  the  tree-bordered 
Muttra  road,  where  camel-wagons  and  strings  of 
donkeys  moved  phantom-like  through  the  dusty 
frost  haze :  the  air  so  very  sharp  that  one  wondered 
how  pipul-  and  tamarind-trees  could  retain  their 
foliage.  The  revel  of  death  and  ruins,  the  feast  of 
tombs  and  mortuary  architecture,  continued  for 
miles,  the  names  of  the  honored  dead  conveying  no 
idea  of  personality,  having  no  association  of  indi- 
viduality to  one,  all  this  past  so  vague  and  unfa- 
miliar that  one  moralizes,  like  Omar,  on  the  vanity 
of  man.  One  at  last  identifies  four  tombs— that 
of  Akbar's  brother,  that  of  the  Chisti  saint,  that  of 
a  Persian  poet  and  that  of  the  unhappy  emperor  Mo- 
hammed Shah,  last  occupant  of  the  Peacock  Throne 
so  thoroughly  despoiled  by  Nadir  Shah.  The  saint, 
who  was  something  of  a  juggler  and  miracle-worker, 
a  Mohammedan  mahatma,  rests  in  a  little  white 
jewel-box  of  marble,  whose  red  awnings  give  a 
comforting  color-note  to  the  chill  court.     The  saint 


OLD  DELHI  229 

built  a  woll  guaranteed  not  to  drown  any  one  wlio 
leaped  into  it,  and  a  lean  boy  in  a  tattered  sheet 
begged  us  to  see  him  jump.  "One  rupee— only 
one  rupee,  memsahib.  Ek  rupia.'"  He  fell,  anna  by 
anna,  to  half  that  price.  We  shivered  in  furs  to  think 
of  a  cold  plunge  in  that  icy  air  and  keen  wind,  and 
finally  bargained,  in  the  presence  of  the  priest,  to 
give  him  six  annas  if  he  would  go  home,  put  on  more 
clothes,  and  not  jump  that  day.  One  crazy  foreigner 
more  or  less,  with  notions  crazier  than  the  last  one, 
could  not  disturb  a  molla;  but  as  it  was  past  his 
prophesying  what  we  might  not  pay  six  annas  for,  in 
the  course  of  our  crass  philanthropy,  he  himself  con- 
ducted us  about  and  to  the  tomb  of  Khusrau,  "  the 
sweet-singing  parrot  of  India,  memsahib. ' '  Khusrau 
was  a  Turk,  but  his  Persian  verses  were  so  beautiful 
that  Sadi  made  a  pilgrimage  from  Persia  to  pay  hom- 
age, and  to  this  day  all  the  gild  of  Delhi  musicians 
and  dancers  remember  him  with  garlands  and  bou- 
quets. In  this  group  of  tombs  is  that  of  Jahanira, 
the  daughter  of  Shah  Jahan  and  Mumtaz-i-Mahal, 
who  is  a  very  real  personage.  Her  years  of  devotion 
to  her  blind  and  captive  father,  her  long  life  of 
piety  and  goodness,  dying  unmarried  at  the  age  of 
sixty-seven,  warranted  her  burial  in  the  Taj  Mahal, 
or  the  Jama  Mas j id  at  Agra,  built  especially  for  her, 
rather  than  with  that  mixed  but  interesting  com- 
pany in  the  suburbs  of  Delhi. 

The  most  beautiful  tomb  of  them  all  is  that  of 
Mirza  Jahangir,  Akbar's  son,— a  platform  of  white 
marble  supporting  a  white  marble  screen,  with  heavy 
doors  of  marble  carved  in  low  relief,  likewise  the 


230  WINTER  INDIA 

lintels,  cornice,  and  base— a  dream  of  decoration,  a 
symphony  in  white.  Near  by  is  another  arrange- 
ment in  white  marble  in  low  relief  and  latticework 
surrounding  unhappy  Mohammed,  once  the  wearer 
of  the  Koh-i-nur  and  occupant  of  the  Peacock 
Throne,  who  concealed  the  great  diamond  in  his 
turban  and  then  was  courteously  invited  to  change 
turbans  by  Nadir  Shah.  If  ever  death  had  beautiful 
and  artistic  recompense,  "it  is  here,  it  is  here,  it  is 
here,"  surely.  Remembering  the  monstrosities  of 
monuments  and  mausoleums  in  our  Western  grave- 
yards, the  broken  columns,  cremation  urns,  and  mis- 
applied Greek  vase  shapes  that  make  our  cemeteries 
places  of  horror,  one  wishes  that  committees  on 
American  public  monuments  and  memorials  might 
study  these  Indian  tombs.  Akbar's  brother  has  also 
a  marble  sarcophagus  carved  in  finest  lacework,  that 
rests  under  a  great  open  pavilion,  a  marble  canopy 
supported  by  sixty-four  carved  columns.  While  we 
stood  enthusiastic  by  this  exquisite  tomb,  comparing 
it  with  the  domed  sentry-box  by  the  Hudson  where 
lies  America's  greatest  soldier,  a  piercing  wail  arose. 
A  lone  turban  on  a  near  roof  was  waving  a  yak-tail 
in  air  as  the  voice  wailed  so  dismally.  Soon  black 
specks  in  the  furthest  sky  defined  themselves  as  hur- 
rying bird-shapes,  hovered  like  gigantic  butterflies 
directly  between  us  and  the  zenith  sun,  and  whirled 
in  prismatic  beauty  to  our  feet,  a  homing  flock  of 
pigeons.  Like  foot-soldiers,  these  winged  creatures 
obeyed  the  voice  and  signals  of  their  keeper,  went 
through  their  evolutions,  and  caught  the  grain 
thrown  in  air.    Afterward  we  recognized  the  pigeon- 


DETAIL    OF   KUTAB   illXAR. 


OLD  DELHI  233 

keeper's  frequent  cry  from  Delhi  roofs,  and  watched 
obedient  flocks  circle  and  wheel  at  the  will  of  in- 
visible owners. 

After  five  miles  of  temples,  tombs,  and  graves  we 
had  had  our  fill  of  mortuary  constructions,  and,  to 
the  consternation  of  the  bearer,  refused  to  descend 
for  Safdar  Jang's  tomb.  "What,  memsahib!  Not 
see  Safdar  Jang?  Everybody  must  see.  Very  nice 
tomb.  Three-story  place,  that  tomb.  Gentries  al- 
ways go  see  that  tomb."  But  we  were  obdurate. 
Safdar  Jang  was  only  the  unlucky  vizier  of  an  in- 
conspicuous Somebody  Shah,  and  Fergusson  had 
said  that  the  mausoleum  would  "not  bear  close  in- 
spection." 

All  this  time  we  were  conscious  of  a  slender,  dark 
lance  lifted  against  the  sky-line.  It  was  what  we 
had  come  so  far  to  see— the  Kutab  minar,  one  of  the 
seven  great  sights  of  India,  and  certainly  the  most 
beautiful  tower  in  the  world.  It  grew  as  we  ad- 
vanced, until  each  angle,  balcony,  and  band  of  let- 
tering on  its  three  red  sandstone  sections  declared 
itself,  and  the  flat,  white  marble  sections  at  the  sum- 
mit were  merged  in  inconspicuous  perspective.  This 
remarkable  Kutab  is  emphatically  such  a  departure 
from  all  the  round  or  square  towers  ever  seen  that 
one  has  no  wish  to  consider  how  it  might  have  looked 
if  constructed  of  one  material  throughout,  or  if  the 
bands  of  ornament,  the  balconies,  and  the  honey- 
comb work  had  been  omitted.  It  is  so  richly  deco- 
rated, it  is  itself  so  decorative,  that  at  moments  it 
seems  as  if  it  were  only  the  fancy  of  a  season,  a  mere 
World's  Fair  fantasy  in  staff  or  stucco,  instead  of  a 


234  WINTER  INDIA 

solidly  built  tower  that  has  stood  there  for  a  thou- 
sand years,  enduring  earthquakes  and  sieges,  and 
restorations  by  the  later  Moguls.  One  has  to  mount 
the  roof  of  the  mosque  and  see  the  great  shaft  at  the 
level  of  its  lowest  bands  of  ornament  to  realize  its 
size  and  the  beauty  and  sharpness  of  those  bold  let- 
ters. One  willingly  traverses  rubbish-heaps  to  do 
homage  to  the  builder,  Kutab-uddin,  the  Pathan 
ruler,  who  rose  from  slavery  to  the  throne,  and  who, 
before  the  completion  of  his  Tower  of  Victory,  was 
laid  away.  One  feels  a  personal  loss  and  depriva- 
tion, too,  that  Ala-uddin,  two  centuries  later,  did 
not  finish  his  great  minaret,  which  would  have  re- 
peated the  Kutab  on  larger  lines,  and  mounted  five 
hundred  feet  in  air,— twice  the  height  of  the  Kutab, 
—  the  entire  surface  faced  with  carved  stones.  View- 
ing the  Kutab  at  close  range  and  from  afar,  one  re- 
members pityingly  the  campaniles  and  giraldas,  obe- 
lisks, spires,  and  pinnacles  of  the  West.  They  used 
to  do  this  thing  so  much  better  in  India. 

The  Kutab  is  so  entirely  the  thing  at  Old  Delhi, 
that  one  lags  in  enthusiasm  over  the  mosque,  with 
its  ruined  arches  and  its  hundred  carved  columns, 
spoil  of  Buddhist  and  Jain  temples  that  the  Pathans 
destroyed.  To-day  interest  in  the  mosque  court  cen- 
ters in  the  wrought-iron  column,  whose  Sanskrit 
inscription  dates  back  to  the  first  century  of  our  era. 
Native  tourists  flock  to  it  as  the  great  sight,  and 
believe  that  if  one  reaches  around  the  column  back- 
ward and  touches  his  hands  together,  good  luck  will 
follow  him.  The  tomb  of  Altamsh,  who  built  the 
mosque,  and  the  one  remaining  gate  of  the  court 


OLD  DELHI  235 

declare  the  scale  of  ornamentation  that  once  covered 
all  these  crumbled  walls  and  arches.  Every  inch  of 
the  roofless  tomb  is  covered  with  carved  ornament,— 
inscriptions,  traceries,  arabesques,  and  geometrical 
designs — the  most  ornamented  mausoleum  in  India. 

In  the  chilly,  whitewashed  vaults  of  the  rest- 
house  in  the  shadow  of  the  Kutab,  with  dusty 
chicks  to  exclude  any  pernicious  sunshine,  we  shiv- 
ered over  the  cold,  cold  tifSn  we  had  brought  with  us. 
Not  hot  bouillion  nor  hot  chocolate  could  mitigate 
the  death  chill  of  that  interior,  or  our  interiors,  and 
we  hastened  to  drive  with  the  wind  four  miles  to  the 
tomb  of  Tughlak.  That  massive,  fortress-like  place, 
of  characteristic  Egyptian  solidity,  was  in  extreme 
contrast  to  the  highly  ornamented  tombs  we  had 
been  seeing  all  day.  The  sloping  walls  and  the  en- 
tire absence  of  ornament  came  as  a  surprise,  but  the 
Pathan  emperor  has  the  ideal  warrior's  tomb.  A 
crumbling  wall  half  screens  the  ruins  of  his  de- 
serted capital  of  Tughlakabad,  within  which  Tugh- 
lak's  fortress  is  as  Egyptian  as  his  suburban  tomb. 

Some  street-dancers  pleaded  with  us  at  the  hotel 
door,  followed  around  and  tapped  on  our  windows, 
and  we  relented  and  moved  the  tea-table  to  the  ter- 
race, where  it  was  really  warmer  than  in  the  house. 
The  two  women,  in  cheap  cottons  and  cheap  jew- 
elry, posed  and  whirled  to  a  monotonous  measure 
beaten  on  a  skin  drum.  One  woman  gracefully  car- 
ried a  tiny  child  on  her  hip,  or  set  it  down  on  the 
cold  flags,  where  it  played  contentedly  with  its  fin- 
gers. Both  dancers  wore  voluminous  accordion- 
plaited  skirts  of  red  cotton,  with  yellow  head-sheets 

13 


236  WINTEE  INDIA 

patterned  in  red,  and  they  were  covered,  as  with 
breastplates,  by  many  silver-coin  necklaces.  One 
dancer  was  a  tall,  sinuous  creature,  with  a  mark- 
edly Jewish  or  Egyptian  face,  who  did  the  serpen- 
tine dance  of  Cairo  cafes,  and  bent  backward  to  pick 
up  a  rupee  from  the  ground  with  her  eyelids. 
Every  step  was  marked  by  the  jingle  and  clash  of 
her  bracelets  and  anklets,  and  this  serpent  of  old 
Jumna,  after  one  lively  measure,  paused  and  spread 
out  her  crinkled  draperies  in  great  butterfly-wings 
behind  her  in  a  "Loie  Fuller  pose"  as  old  as  Delhi. 
We  had  lamps  and  more  lamps  brought,  eyes  and 
turbans  uncounted  gathered  in  the  dusk,  and,  in- 
spired by  native  approval  and  tourist  rupees,  the 
skirt  dance  went  on  through  many  figures. 

We  sent  runners  to  find  them  the  next  morn- 
ing. We  wanted  them  to  dance  at  noon,  that  we 
might  turn  a  battery  of  kodaks  upon  them.  "Those 
are  very  poor,  common  dancers,"  said  the  bearer, 
scornfully.  ''I  will  get  very  splendid  nautches,  in 
silk  and  kincob  saris  and  very  splendid  jewels,  in 
'niklasses'  and  'griddles'  of  rubies  and  pearls." 
But  we  wanted  only  those  same  dancers  in  their 
cheap  clothes  and  silver  necklaces  and  girdles;  and 
it  took  insistence  to  get  them.  They  came;  and  in 
the  sunlight  their  silver  and  glass,  brass  and  lac  jew- 
elry were  as  gems,  and  our  enthusiasm  was  greater 
than  that  of  the  night  before.  They  danced  their 
best,  held  their  poses  interminably  for  the  time  ex- 
posures, and  we  reeled  film  away  so  recklessly  that 
the  hotel  manager  said:  "Oh,  madam,  if  you  have 
so  many  plates  to  spare,  won't  you  take  my  baby?" 


STREET  DAXCEES.  DELHI. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


LAHORE 


VEN  the  Delhi  bullocks  were  blanketed 
the  day  we  left  for  Lahore  and  the 
farther,  colder  Northwest.  We  had 
bought  more  and  more  razais  as  we 
went  up-country,  until  the  bichauna, 
or  rolls  of  traveling  bedding,  would  barely  pass 
through  a  car  door,  and,  finally,  yards  of  heavy  pash- 
mina  cloth  to  wind  around  us  in  makeshift  Indian 
fashion.  The  memorial  Mutiny  cross,  standing  high 
on  the  Ridge,  was  the  last  seen  of  Delhi;  and  there 
followed  a  few  wayside  stations  with  sliivering  plat- 
form groups,  an  uninteresting  sunset  over  a  dusty, 
barren  plain;  dinner  at  Saharanpur,  and  merciful 
darkness,  while  we  jolted  on  until  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning. 

It  was  dark  night  when  we  were  whirled  through 
Lahore's  frosty  streets,  to  find  warm  rooms  with 
real  coal  fires  in  open  grates.  We  reappeared  with  the 
latest  British  breakf asters  at  the  long  table  d'hote, 
and  in  the  city  of  his  youth  we  found  a  whole  table 
full  of  Kipling  characters— English  army  people 
and  civil  servants.  We  could  almost  call  them  all 
by  name,  and  life  at  that  hotel  was  a  continuous 

239 


240  WINTER  INDIA 

dramatization  of  stories  known  by  heart.  What  a 
company  they  were !  And  how  they  denied  their 
maker,  or  portrait-painter,  when  we  said  Kipling  to 
them!  There  was  the  major's  wife,  fat,  brune,  and 
long  past  forty,  wrinkles  drawn  in  lines  of  pearl 
powder  around  her  eyes  and  under  her  chin.  She 
wore  a  youthful  sailor-hat,  a  frizzed  front,  and  a 
Bath  bun,  and  had  all  the  kittenish  w^ays  of  sweet 
sixteen.  Her  most  devoted  cavalier,  in  a  cloud  of 
attentive  subalterns,  was  a  callow  blond,  young 
enough  to  be  her  grandson  ;  and  if  there  had  been  no 
one  else  in  the  hotel,  we  should  have  had  entertain- 
ment enough  in  the  kitten-play  of  this  elderly 
charmer.  When  not  making  eyes  and  simpering  at 
her  courtiers,  she  queened  it  over  the  "lef tenants'  " 
and  captains'  wives,  and  was  inclined  to  snub  a 
commissioner's  daughter.  She  looked  us  over  criti- 
cally through  a  lorgnette,  just  as  we  had  stared  at 
the  tigers  and  chetahs  at  the  Zoo,  and  put  to  us 
those  direct  British  questions  that  the  rural  Yankee 
cannot  match.  Having  disclosed  our  relationships, 
our  nationality,  our  past  and  future  itinerary,  and 
explained  the  other  tourists  as  far  as  we  knew" 
them,  we  reversed  the  situation  in  Li  Hung  Chang 
fashion,  and  interviewed  the  interviewer.  It  always 
touches  the  sensitive  nerve  and  presses  the  button  of 
Anglo-Indian  loquacity  to  mention  Kipling,  and 
away  went  the  major's  lady  like  a  steeplechaser 
when  we  said  that  Lahore  only  meant  Kipling  to 
us.  "No  one  in  India  reads  Kipling,"  she  said  im- 
pressively. "We  do  not  esteem  him  at  all.  He  does 
not  tell  the  truth  about  anything.     Why,  he  was  a 


LAHORE  241 

very  common,  low  sort  of  person  here.  He  only 
associated  with  the  'Tommies,'  as  you  see  by  his 
books— all  full  of  things  about  the  serf^eants'  and 
the  soldiers'  wives  and  their  class.  Of  course,  as  he 
never  associated  witli  ladies,  or  went  with  the  nice 
chaps  of  the  regiments,  how  could  he  know  anything 
about  society,  about  Government  House,  or  the 
Simla  sets?  Why,  in  that  ridiculous  story—"  and 
she  told  me  in  detail  how  he  had  it  all  wrong  about 
the  Gadsbj^s,  the  Hauksbees,  and  others ;  for  she  knew 
some  people  who  were  in  Simla  that  year,  and  it  was 
this  way,  etc.,  etc.  In  fact,  all  those  ancient  and 
historic  scandals  were  degrees  worse  than  Kipling 
makes  them  out;  for  the  Anglo-Indians  allow  no 
imagination  to  the  novelist,  every  tale  must  be  iden- 
tified with  some  real  event  in  their  own  experience. 
As  to  whether  Kipling  truly  delineated  native  char- 
acter—  ''Dear  me,  how  should  I  know  anything 
about  the  nasty  creatures !  As  if  we  paid  any  at- 
tention to  them !  Government  has  schools  and  does 
altogether  too  much  for  them,  anyhow."  And  then 
the  memsahib,  who  of  course  did  not  speak  Hindu- 
stani, who  never  came  in  contact  with  native  women 
of  any  but  the  servant  class,  and  who  fitted  exactly 
into  the  situation  that  Mrs.  Steele  upbraids,  de- 
nounced that  champion  of  the  native  people.  It  was 
quite  like  the  Creoles  of  New  Orleans  and  Mr.  Cable ; 
but  having  heard  Macaulay  berated,  Max  Miiller 
scoffed  at,  and  Sir  AVilliam  Hunter  denounced,  it 
was  taken  with  many  grains  of  salt. 

More   interesting   than   anything   inside   the   La- 
hore Museum  is  the  fine  old  bronze  cannon  before  its 


242  WINTER  INDIA 

door — the  Sikhs  cherished  Zamzamah,  a  national 
trophy  glorified  to  them  by  history  and  legend,  and 
immortalized  to  all  English-speaking  people  as  the 
gun  bestrode  by  Kim  the  Rishti,  when  the  Lama 
first  appeared  to  him.  The  rich  collections  in  the 
"wonder-house"  were  assembled  and  arranged  by 
the  elder  Kipling,  the  white-bearded  curator  whom 
the  Lama  met  there.  Its  unique  treasures  are  the 
Greco-Buddhist  sculptures  which  General  Cunning- 
ham found  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Gandhara 
(modem  Peshawar),  capital  of  the  Scythian  empire 
when  Buddhism  was  the  state  religion— majestic 
statues  of  Gautama  as  priest  and  prince,  and  bas- 
reliefs  as  exquisite  as  the  Alexander  sarcophagus. 
The  arts  of  later  India  are  well  shown,  and  fine  old 
carved  and  inlaid  doors,  panels,  balconies,  window 
latticings,  and  house-fronts  serve  as  models  for  the 
students  of  the  art  school  which  J.  L.  Kipling 
founded  and  directed  to  such  successful  degree  be- 
fore he  left  India.  Copies  of  these  old  carvings  are 
sold  at  prices  that  torment  the  American,  who,  after 
paying  their  cost  and  transportation,  nearly  must 
pay  for  them  over  again  at  his  home  custom-house, 
in  order  to  protect  steam  furniture-factories.  Sil- 
ver, brass-  and  copper-work,  lacquers,  potteries,  tex- 
tiles, and  embroideries  from  the  Panjab  are  gathered 
there,  and  the  model  of  the  Koh-i-nur  has  pathetic 
interest  in  Lahore,  its  last  home.  In  January  the 
stone  walls  and  stone  floors  of  the  museum  create 
an  ice-edged  atmosphere  more  benumbing  than  the 
death-dealing  chill  of  the  Lateran  galleries  in  Rome, 
and  one  soon  flees  from  it. 


LAHORE  243 

The  tomb  of  Anarkali,  given  first  place  in  the 
guide-book,  and  warranted  the  most  interesting  thing 
in  Lahore,  drew  us  to  the  domed  white  building,  in 
turn  occupied  as  the  English  civilian  church  and  as 
local  offices.  Anarkali,  pretty  "Pomegranate  Blos- 
som," was  one  of  Akbar's  wives,  and,  being  seen 
to  smile  when  Akbar's  son,  Jahangir,  entered  the 
harem,  was  buried  alive.  Akbar  held  the  trial  after 
the  execution,  and  must  have  had  a  very  bad  con- 
science, judging  from  the  beauty  of  the  little  mau- 
soleum and  the  white  marble  sarcophagus,  covered 
every  inch  with  the  finest  ornament  and  lettering 
in  relief.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  kept  under  glass  and 
shown  as  the  chief  treasure  of  a  museum ;  but  Brit- 
ish officialdom  has  shoved  it  aside,  out  from  under 
the  center  of  its  dome,  to  an  alcove  where  we  pur- 
sued it  around  desks  and  braziers  and  wooden  chairs, 
a  babu  in  woolen  neck-comforter  obligingly  lifting 
a  heap  of  papers  that  we  might  see  all  the  sculptured 
surface.  Throughout  Lahore  splendid  Moslem 
tombs  were  turned  to  practical  use  after  British 
occupation.  Even  Government  House  was  adapted 
from  the  tomb  of  Akbar's  cousin,  with  additions  to 
meet  later  requirements.  When  such  desecration  be- 
gan, the  angry  Mohammedans  foretold  death  within 
a  year  to  all  such  vandals,  and  when  any  prophet's 
reputation  was  at  stake  he  took  care  that  poison,  as 
a  last  resort,  should  verify  his  forecast.  The  Bengali 
babus  perched  on  high  stools  around  the  mauso- 
leum were  amused  at  our  indignant  comments.  No- 
thing could  please  them  more  than  any  affronts  to 
Mohammedan    prejudices   or   sensibilities,    and   the 


244  WINTER   INDIA 

hatred  between  the  men  of  the  two  religions  is 
something  one  slowly  realizes.  The  Mohammedan 
despises  the  Hindu  and  his  sacred  cow,  and  loves  to 
kill  and  eat  the  peacock,  while,  in  return,  the  Hindu 
delights  in  defiling  Mohammedan  precincts  with  the 
loathed  dog  and  pig;  and  in  Lahore  the  Sikhs  are 
against  both  religions  and  have  long  scores  to  settle. 
In  "On  the  City  Walls,"  Kipling  shows  the  tur- 
moil accompanying  any  religious  festival.  The  Mo- 
hammedan deeply  hates  the  babu,  but  until  the  re- 
cent establishment  of  the  Aligarh  College  had  made 
no  effort  to  put  forward  Mohammedan  youth  as  rival 
to  the  glib  Bengali  in  preparing  for  public  service. 
The  street  crowds  of  Lahore  were  more  pictur- 
esque even  than  those  of  Delhi.  A  different  type  of 
man  had  appeared  overnight,  or  rather  the  occa- 
sional whiskered  giants  seen  on  the  Chandni  Chauk 
were  here  universal — more  beard,  more  turban, 
yards  and  yards  more  cloth  in  the  baggy  trousers 
and  shoulder  shawls.  The  long  coats  of  the  Persians, 
the  flaring,  crossed  Chinese  coat  of  Turkestan  and 
Tibet  appeared,  and  there  were  stray  Afghans,  too, 
picturesque  and  ferocious  giants, wearing  peaked  tur- 
bans, sheepskin  coats,  and  striped  shoulder  shawls. 
When  we  had  left  the  orderly  civil  lines  and  had 
gone  through  the  city  gates,  we  entered  the  land 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  more  of  color,  incident,  and 
picturesqueness  to  be  seen  in  the  bazaars  of  Lahore 
than  anywhere  else  in  India.  Queer,  ramshackle 
houses  towered  along  the  narrow  streets,  some  fres- 
coed in  colors,  their  fronts  broken  by  balconies,  log- 
gias, bay-windows,  and  latticings  of  dark,  carved 


LAHORE  247 

wood,  with  flat  roofs  and  parapets  at  every  elevation 
—roofs  that  Kim  ran  over,  roofs  where  the  women 
gasped  in  ''The  City  of  Dreadful  Night";  for,  al- 
though Lahore  is  so  far  north,  it  is  one  of  the  hottest 
places  in  summer,— Meean  Mir  cantonment  the  ac- 
knowledged **oven  of  India,"  where  epidemics  al- 
ways rage  their  worst. 

All  Lahore  was  muffled  and  bundled  in  cotton 
clothes  and  brilliant  chuddas,  and  all  sought  the 
sun  that  crisp,  frosty  morning,  until  the  streets  held 
a  living,  moving  rainbow  mass  and  every  shop-front 
seemed  set  for  color  effect.  Women  in  gay  head- 
sheets  and  children  in  satin  jackets  sunned  them- 
selves in  window-frames  of  dark-brown  fretted  wood- 
work; and  Mohammedan  women  in  white  cloaks 
falling  full  from  round  crown-pieces,  with  latticed 
holes  for  the  eyes,  wandered  in  the  brilliant  company, 
giving  it  still  more  the  air  of  a  fancy-dress  ball.  The 
carnival  crowds,  moving  against  such  fantastic  back- 
ground, made  one  listen  for  slow  music  to  accom- 
pany this  stately  spectacular  march.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  Lahore  bazaars  were  but  painted  wings, 
drops,  and  flies,  the  crowds  one  well-drilled  theatri- 
cal troupe— a  continuous  performance  kept  up  for 
our  benefit.  All  the  industries  were  picturesque, 
every  shop  decorative,  and  we  stood  fascinated, 
to  watch  the  baker  reaching  down  into  the  deep  mud 
oven  with  a  hooked  wire  and  bringing  out  pancake 
loaves  of  bread ;  the  dyer  stirring  his  vats,  wring- 
ing out  lengths  of  cloth  and  festooning  them  over 
the  front  of  his  shop ;  the  printer,  next  door,  stamp- 
ing block  patterns  on  turban  ends,  and  the  Kash- 


248  WINTER  INDIA 

miri  men  and  boys,  cross-legged  in  alcoves,  em- 
broidering gold  turban  ends  or  fine  shaAvl  borders. 
One  Kashmiri  in  purple  satin  jacket  and  a  yellow 
turban  worked  with  gold  wire,  while  a  small  boy 
in  a  sleeveless  red  jacket  and  a  woman  in  a  head- 
sheet  of  vivid  pink  looked  on.  Heaps  of  oranges 
and  pale  bananas,  red  Kashmiri  apples,  and  green 
Kabul  grapes  made  set  color  studies  on  every  fruit- 
stand.  The  dried-sweetmeat  shops  were  as  rich  in 
combinations  of  browns  and  tawny  orange,  and  the 
curry-shops  were  as  satisfying  with  their  strands 
of  red  peppers  and  baskets  of  red,  white,  yellow, 
brown,  and  greenish  meal.  Candy-sellers  crouched 
in  the  open  with  trays  of  sticky  sweets,  beseeching 
us  to  keep  our  shadows  away.  Having  thus  defiled  a 
tray  of  gujack,  we  bought  it  and  found  many  idlers 
willing  to  eat  the  defiled  sesame  brittle,  made  of 
sesame  seeds,  sorghum  syrup,  seedless  raisins,  al- 
mond meal,  and  crescents  of  thin  cocoanut  strips, 
the  rich  "fudge"  rolled  out  in  a  thin  pancake  over 
a  foot  in  diameter.  Silk-shops,  brass-  and  pottery- 
shops,  gem-cutters'  and  shoemakers'  dens,  were  all 
decorative  and  interesting.  The  tea-shops,  with 
steaming  samovars,  were  significant  of  the  dreaded 
Russian  advance  and  influence.  The  red  beans  of 
New  England  and  pop-corn  had  a  familiar  look  even 
in  such  strange  environment. 

After  a  revel  in  this  living  picturesqueness  we 
went  ruefully  back  to  conventional  sight-seeing  and 
did  the  Jama  Masjid,  with  its  superb  inlaid  arches, 
and  saw  the  relics  of  the  Prophet.  We  saw  Run- 
jeet  Singh's  tomb,  its  carved  doors  and  gay  mirror 


LAHORE  249 

and  plaster  interior,  where  Sikh  priests  shouted 
from  the  sacred  books,  waved  peacock  feathers,  and 
threw  jasmine  garlands  over  us.  We  saw  also  Ak- 
bar's  fort  and  palace— tawdry  and  flat  after  the 
splendors  of  Delhi ;  our  fancy  arrested  by  the  inlaid 
hall  known  as  the  Naulahka,  name  also  of  a  quar- 
ter of  the  outer  city  of  Lahore.  When  the  Sikhs 
captured  Lahore  they  wreaked  themselves  on  these 
halls  of  Jahangir  and  Shah  Jahan,  and  the  British 
barrack-builder  has  done  the  rest.  The  Scotch  cor- 
poral who  showed  us  through  dwelt  mostly  on  some 
finely  damascened  and  grained  guns,  chain-mail, 
swords,  and  Sikh  knives  in  the  armory.  In  one 
pavilion  the  fantastic  mirror  and  plaster  walls  were 
crying  aloud  at  some  hideous  European  carpets  and 
furnitui'e— the  rankest  of  "Tottenham  Court  Road 
furniture."  Small  wonder  that  the  Viceroy  exhorted 
the  Indian  princes  to  patronize  their  own  craftsmen 
when  it  came  to  palace  furnishings.  This  pavilion 
commands  a  fine  view  out  over  the  parapet  of  the 
city  wall  to  the  park  below,  with  the  blue  windings 
of  the  Ravi  beyond  distant  trees;  but  the  best-re- 
membered palace  sight  was  a  Sikh  sergeant's  wife, 
who  was  a  walking  jewel-show,  covered  from  crown 
to  ringed  toe  with  such  an  array  of  ornaments  as 
one  might  expect  an  emperor's  favorite  to  wear.  We 
expressed  our  thanks  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  her, 
to  the  amusement  of  the  Scot  and  the  pride  of  the 
Sikh  proprietor  of  the  jeweled  jade. 

After  a  hasty  tiffin  with  the  Kipling  crowd,  who 
were  full  bent  on  the  regimental  tea  and  polo-match 
of  the  afternoon,  we  took  a  hastier  look  at  the  un- 


250  WINTER  INDIA 

usual  animals  of  the  ''lion  and  tiger  museum," 
where  the  most  remarkable  sight  was  a  monkey  hold- 
ing a  looking-glass  that  it  might  see  to  pick  its 
teeth  and  prick  its  throat  with  a  dangerous-looking 
darning-needle.  We  hastened  back  to  the  native 
city,  and  from  the  time  we  left  the  "Europe  shops" 
and  the  avenue  of  trees  with  shabby  tram-cars  jin- 
gling by  and  penetrated  the  city  gate,  we  moved 
in  an  ideal  East,  an  Arabian  Nights'  revel  of  Mo- 
hammedan picturesqueness.  The  half-mile  bazaar 
between  Vazir  Khan's  and  the  Golden  Mosque  is 
the  heart  of  Lahore,  all  the  people  and  trades  of 
the  Panjab  being  exhibited  there.  In  that  narrow 
lane  between  the  balconied  houses,  where  every  win- 
dow flaunted  some  flaming  turban  or  shawl,  and 
each  alcove  shop  was  set  for  theatrical  effect  and 
overflowed  to  the  street,  there  moved  the  same  bril- 
liantly costumed  company  of  the  morning.  All  pic- 
turesqueness and  color  centered  in  greatest  intensity 
at  the  gateway  of  the  Vazir  Kllian  Mosque,  single 
figures  and  groups  in  tableaux  tempting  the  kodak, 
until  we  feared  we  should  have  no  more  film  left 
after  Lahore.  Before  that  glorious  portal,  its  fa- 
cade a  dream  of  soft  old  Persian  tiles,  there  con- 
gregated barbers,  beggars,  peddlers,  money-chang- 
ers, letter-writers,  and  smithies,  prostrate  bullocks, 
venders  of  fat-tailed  sheep,  donkeys  loaded  with 
vegetables,  hawkers,  idlers,  and  busy  people  of  every 
kind.  "Remove  thy  heart  from  the  gardens  of  the 
world,  and  know  that  this  building  is  the  true  abode 
of  man,"  is  written  in  slender  letters  on  the  blue 
and  green  Persian  tiles  of  the  mosque  front;  and 


SCriOOL-BUVS    IX    THK    VA/.li;    KUAN    MoscilK.   l,Aniil;i;, 


AKilIlAN    l-ALcnNKK.   I'KSIl  A  \V  A  I; 


LAHORE  253 

a  legion  of  beggars  have  taken  the  Vazir  at  his 
word,  lounging  on  the  steps  and  in  sunny  corners 
all  day,  and  sleeping  at  night  in  the  quiet  court  over- 
looked by  two  minarets.  Professional  menders  sit 
patching  rags  as  though  waiting  for  kodaks  to  come 
that  way,  and  a  balcony  off  the  cloister  overlooks  the 
busy  street,  exactly  as  an  opera-box  commands  less 
spectacular  effects. 

There  was  a  sound  like  the  chirp  of  many  birds, 
and  a  school-teacher  led  three  hundred  small  boys 
into  the  court.  Each  youngster  put  his  books,  coat, 
shoes,  and  turban-cloth  in  a  heap,  and  knelt  by  the 
tank  to  bathe  hands  and  feet  before  prayer.  The 
teacher  patrolled  the  lines  with  a  stick,  trouncing 
a  laggard  here  and  thrashing  a  boy  there  into  the 
line  and  order  of  piety.  When  the  unruly  and  rest- 
less flock  were  purified,  a  leader  among  them  gave  a 
call,  and  all  filed  in  under  the  arches  and  prostrated 
themselves  on  the  inlaid  floor,  facing  westward  to 
Mecca.  One  small  turban  explained  to  us  that  they 
came  there  every  day  to  "pray  to  God,"  and  the 
pious  scamp  showed  me  on  the  last  leaf  of  his  school- 
book  :  "  In  the  name  of  God,  the  Most  Merciful,  this 
is  my  book.  The  property  of  Hassan  Khan.  Do 
not  steal." 

When  we  had  seen  the  three  gilded  bubble  domes 
of  the  Golden  Mosque  reflected  in  the  tank  of  its 
white  court,  and  the  Hindus  going  through  their 
purification  rites  at  the  temple  by  the  bo-tree,  the 
bearer  was  for  carrying  us  back  through  the  Delhi 
Gate  to  the  silver-shops  and  Europe  shops  and  the 
shops    for    Kashmir   work    and    Bokhara    silks,    to 


254  WINTER  INDIA 

hunt  for  green  slippers  with  seed-pearl  toes,  for 
Peshawar  shoes  woven  of  strips  of  leather  on  models 
used  by  Alexander  the  Great's  shoemaker— to  hunt 
for  Yarkand  jade  and  Ladak  turquoises,  but  our 
interest  in  such  shops  was  gone.  "Drive  back,"  we 
said;  and,  repassing  the  mosque,  we  threaded  again 
all  those  brilliant  bazaars,  were  blocked  in  a  narrow 
lane  by  a  funeral,  and  came  out  finally  on  a  common 
by  the  fort,  where  men  and  boys  were  flying  kites. 
A  crowd  was  jeering  and  cheering  the  fliers,  and 
one  bearded  parent  soundly  boxed  his  son's  ears 
when  he  bungled  in  launching  his  paper  shield. 
"Drive  back,"  and  we  worked  slowly  again  to  the 
Delhi  Gate,  where  the  crowds  had  even  increased. 
Once  more  we  threaded  the  brilliant  labyrinth  and 
saw  the  kite-fliers  reel  in  their  chargers.  A  spec- 
tacular sunset  fired  the  sky,  and  when  for  the  fifth 
time  we  traversed  the  narrow  lanes,  they  were  lanes 
of  twinkling  enchantment,  every  window  and  alcove 
carrying  its  kerosene-lamp  and  torches  flaring  by 
the  Vazir  Khan.  The  frosty  air  was  laden  with  the 
bazaar's  mixed  smell  of  raw  sugar,  incense,  spices, 
grease,  and  wood  smoke,  and  only  a  dinner-company 
of  Kipling's  own  could  have  drawn  us  away. 

It  was  almost  a  surprise  the  next  morning  to  find 
the  streets,  the  shops,  the  crowds,  the  tiled  front 
of  the  mosque  all  there,  to  find  Lahore  bazaars  solid 
realities,  and  not  dreams.  We  saw  Shalimar  Gar- 
dens, the  triple-terraced  home  of  the  nightingale, 
once  an  imperial  pleasure-ground,  arranged  like  one 
seen  in  dreams,  but  now  a  rather  dusty,  dreary  place 
of  formal  flower-beds,  fountains,  marble  cascades, 


LAHORE  255 

and  canals,  that  becomes  a  palace  garden  of  enchant- 
ment when  illuminated  for  viceregal  functions.  More 
interesting  was  the  drive  to  the  Ravi  and  across 
a  bridge  of  boats,  where  the  passage  of  bullock-carts 
and  trains  of  donkeys  was  regulated  by  the  bridge- 
keeper's  drum-beats.  We  found  Jahangir's  tomb 
deep  down  in  a  square  marble  terrace  in  another 
formal  garden,  where  orange-trees  hung  full  of  fruit 
and  flower-beds  were  masses  of  bloom.  This  son  of 
Akbar,  the  reputed  Christian,  who  at  least  wore  a 
rosary  and  was  so  bad  a  Moslem  that  he  drank  to 
inebriety,  spent  his  summers  in  the  Vale  of  Kashmir 
with  his  clever  Persian  wife,  Nur  Jahan,— Nur  Ma- 
hal, the  Harem's  Pride, told  of  in  ''Lalla  Rookh,"and 
who  seems  a  very  real  personage.  He  is  laid  away 
in  an  octagonal  chamber  deep  down  in  a  solid  square 
terrace,  in  such  a  cenotaph  as  rivals  that  of  Anar- 
kali.  Instead  of  white  relief  carving,  Jahangir's 
sarcophagus  is  inlaid,  quite  the  most  beautiful  piece 
of  pietra  dura  that  I  had  seen.  Flowers  and  ara- 
besques are  inlaid  with  large  pieces  of  amethyst, 
lapis,  jade,  and  carnelian,  and  the  ninety-nine 
names  of  Allah  in  fine  black  marble  letters  sur- 
round the  sarcophagus.  Runjeet  Singh  despoiled  the 
tomb  of  its  upper  pavilions  and  marble  pavement, 
but  the  British  have  repaved  and  restored  the  ter- 
race—and viceregal  tea-tables  are  now  spread  di- 
rectly over  the  body  of  Jahangir,  and  all  is  as  gay 
as  when  he  made  it  a  feast-place  before  his  death. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   END   OF   THE   INDIAN    EMPIRE 

j|T  was  a  damp  and  dreary,  a  raw  and 
chilly  afternoon  when  we  drove  away 
from  Kipling's  people  and  waited  for 
an  hour  in  that  drafty,  echoing  for- 
tress— the  Lahore  railway  station. 
The  Northern  Railway  across  the  Pan  jab,  being  a 
government  line,  is  subject  to  delays  and  alterations 
of  schedule  to  suit  special  needs,  and  the  red  car- 
pets at  hand  for  the  arrival  of  the  "L.  G. "  of  the 
Panjab  on  the  following  afternoon  promised  greater 
delays  had  we  deferred  our  start.  As  all  first-class 
cars  are  run  at  a  loss  on  Indian  railways,  we  could 
not  complain  at  the  usual  forlorn  conveyance;  but 
the  rattling  window-panes  of  blue  or  violet  glass, 
admitting  the  chill,  actinic  light,  made  the  shabby 
car  drearier  and  dingier  than  usual,  and  seemed  to 
add  degrees  of  cold  to  the  air.  The  bleak  and  stony 
yellow  plain,  like  the  sage-brush  and  alkali  wastes 
of  Nevada,  looked  snow-covered  through  these  tinted 
glasses,  and  the  cold,  blue,  depressing  light  finally 
suggested  the  experiments  made  with  invalids,  luna- 
tics, and  plants  at  the  time  of  the  blue-glass  craze 

256 


THE  END  OF  THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE  257 

and  cure  of  so  long  ago.  It  was  impossible  to  read 
in  the  jolting  carriage,  and  we  could  only  draw  rugs 
and  razais  aBout  us  and  watch  the  drear  landscape 
roll  by  as  the  trucks  thundered  over  the  dusty  road- 
bed. The  groups  on  station  platforms  grew  more 
pinched  and  more  uncomfortable-looking,  with  cot- 
ton clothes  more  and  more  voluminous  in  cut,  and 
streaming  with  more  and  more  loose  ends  of  extra 
drapery,  as  we  ran  on  through  the  frosty,  hazy  glow 
of  a  sudden  yellow  sunset  that,  glorifying  the  white 
peaks  of  Kashmir,  faded  quickly  to  a  green  and  a 
hyacinthine  sky,  and  then  to  the  blackness  of  winter 
night. 

The  one  weary  lamp  in  the  carriage  did  not  give 
light  enough  for  us  to  read  and  lay  to  heart  the 
several  framed  ordinances  which  the  government 
railway  holds  up  to  travelers.  Evidently  there  is 
a  ''dog  question"  in  British  India  equal  to  the 
"cow  question"  in  the  Hindu  and  Mohammedan 
circles.  "His  Excellency  the  Governor-General  in 
Council"  had  first  to  rule: 


DOGS  IN  CARRIAGES 

Passengers  will  not  be  allowed  to  take  any  dog  into  a  pas- 
senger carriage,  except  with  the  permission  of  the  Station  Master 
at  the  starting  station,  and  also  with  the  consent  of  their  fellow 
passengers,  and  then  only  on  payment  of  a  double  fare  for  each 
dog,  subject  to  the  condition  that  it  shall  be  removed  if  subse- 
quently objected  to,  no  refund  being  given.  This  rule  does  not 
apply  to  dogs  conveyed  in  reserved  compartments,  or  carriages, 
or  in  private  special  trains.  The  number  of  dogs  to  be  taken 
into  a  reserved   compartment  must  not  exceed  three. 

14 


258  WINTEE  INDIA 

And  again  it  was  intimated  to  the  public  in  the 
formal  phrase  of  a  viceregal  ball-  or  dinner-card, 
by  a  secretary,  who  said : 

I  am  directed  to  state  that  His  Excellency  the  Governor- 
General  in  Coiincil  considers  it  desirable  in  the  interest  of  the 
travelling  public  to  rule  that  in  future  no  person  shall  be  allowed 
to  take  any  dog  into  a  passenger  carriage,  except  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  Station  Master  at  starting  station  and  also  with  the 
concurrence  of  the  fellow  passengers. 

At  sunrise  the  next  morning  we  saw  the  blue 
range  of  the  Hindu  Kush  with  a  sprinkling  of  snow 
on  its  sharp  crest-lines,  and  the  same  dreary,  dry, 
stony  plain  around  us,  broken  only  by  a  few  clay 
bluffs  and  the  gullied  watercourses  of  the  rainy  sea- 
son. The  air  was  thin,  sharp,  and  frosty  as  we  low- 
ered the  rattling  blue  window-panes  for  a  look  at  the 
forlorn  adobe  village  on  the  banks,  and  the  great 
fortified  bridge  across  the  Indus  at  Attock — Attock ! 
the  ford  and  crossing-place  of  every  invader  and 
conqueror  from  the  North  since  Aryan  times ;  where 
every  one  of  them  camped  and  fought,— Egyptian, 
Persian,  Greek,  Scythian,  Afghan,  and  Mogul,  down 
to  Nadir  Shah.  When  the  train  had  trailed  slowly 
across  the  high  iron  girders  and  passed  through  an- 
other great  fortress  bridge-tower,  it  turned  sharply 
and  ran  along  the  bank,  giving  us  a  view  of  the 
great  picturesque  front  of  Akbar's  fort  on  the  oppo- 
site bluff.  Except  for  that  imposing  battlemented 
castle  and  fortified  bridge,  the  muddy  river,  the 
banks,  the  stony  plain,  and  the  blue  mountain-range 
showing  so  clearly  in  the  thin,  dry  air,  might  as  well 


THE  END  OF   THE  INDIAN   EMPIRE  259 

have  been  the  country  of  the  upper  Missouri;  but 
this  plain  between  the  Indus  and  the  Safed  Koh  has 
been  a  world 's  battle-ground  for  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years,  and  history  is  written  on  top  of  history 
like  records  on  a  palimpsest.  Here  at  the  Indus 
has  always  been  the  virtual  frontier  of  India,  the 
river  drawing  a  natural  line  from  the  Himalayas 
down  to  the  Persian  Gulf;  but,  once  advancing 
here  to  a  valley  and  there  to  a  range,  the  frontier 
has  crept  westward  and  northward,  and  is  still  ever- 
moving,  changing,  and  elusive. 

At  Khairabad  station,  facing  Attoek,  the  early 
morning  tea-table  was  ready  on  the  platform,  and 
muffled  figures  bore  trays  of  steaming  cups  to  the 
car  windows,  while  benumbed  travelers  surrounded 
the  tall  samovar.  The  wildest  lot  of  turbaned  and 
disheveled  folk,  some  in  sheepskin  coats  and  some 
wound  over  and  looped  up  with  unmanageable  yards 
and  yards  of  loose  cotton  clothing  and  loaded  down 
with  strange  saddle-bags,  bundles,  water-jars,  and 
hubble-bubble  pipes,  were  already  waiting  when  the 
train  drew  up.  When  the  third-class  passengers, 
who  had  been  packed  to  standing-room  all  night, 
were  bundled  out  and  added  to  this  waiting  crowd 
while  a  fresh  train  w'as  made  up,  there  was  spec- 
tacle indeed,  local  color  too,  and  such  an  uproar  as 
threatened  the  demolition  of  the  Indian  Empire— 
or  at  least  the  sacking  of  the  train  and  the  raz- 
ing of  Khairabad  station.  The  whole  traveling  pub- 
lic had  changed  overnight  to  the  fierce  Afghan  type, 
which  had  been  so  picturesque  when  first  seen  in  the 
bazaars  of  Lahore;  and  the  vehement  giants,  tur- 


260  WINTER  INDIA 

baned  and  bearded  to  exaggeration,  ramped  up  and 
down  the  platform  with  bare  feet  thrust  in  loose, 
clattering  Mohammedan  shoes,  shouldering  and  hus- 
tling one  another  in  no  gentle  way.  Despite  the 
clamor  and  the  crowding,  as  so  many  desperate 
tribesmen  stormed  and  carried  each  third-class  car- 
riage and  filled  every  cubic  inch  of  its  space  with 
their  own  superfluous  size  and  belongings,  the  train 
finally  drew  away,  leaving  the  platform  full  of  left- 
over passengers— '4iuge,  black-haired,  scowling  sons 
of  Ben-i- Israel,"  who  raged  aloud  in  their  wrath, 
until  one  felt  sure  the  station-master  must  barri- 
fiade  himself  and  the  great  guns  of  Attock  thunder 
across  the  river  before  the  uproar  would  subside. 
These  tall,  hairy,  and  noisy  creatures,  with  peaked 
Afghan  caps  within  their  striped  turban-cloths,  were 
far  removed  from  the  soft  and  supple  Hindus  we 
had  left  in  the  South,  unlike  even  the  bearded  Sikhs 
at  Lahore.  We  had  journeyed  overnight  to  another 
country,  had  come  again  to  a  blue-eyed  people,  to 
the  pale  Aryans  of  the  Northwest,  to  a  race  of  wea- 
ther-beaten and  ruddy-cheeked  mountaineers,  to  the 
Pathans  of  Kipling's  tales— tales  so  true,  pictures 
so  clearly  painted,  that  one  recognizes  these  hairy 
giants  as  fascinating  old  acquaintances,  characters 
in  fiction  come  to  life. 

Crossing  more  of  the  same  dreary,  yellow  plain, 
and  nearing  the  mountain  barrier,  the  train  at  last 
ran  by  the  mud  walls  of  a  mud  city  in  a  mud  plain, 
—Peshawar,  Akbar's  ''frontier  city,"  the  extreme 
northern  outpost  of  the  Indian  Empire;  nineteen 
hundred  miles  from  Cape  Comorin  and  two  hun- 


THE  END  OF   THE   INDIAN   EMPIRE  261 

dred  and  seventy-eight  miles  from  Lahore— the  lat- 
ter distance  covered  by  fast-mail  train  in  seventeen 
hours.  The  storied  mud  walls  of  the  city  were  like 
adobe  pueblos,  and  the  same  dry  and  treeless  plain, 
dry,  thin  atmosphere,  and  glaring  white  sunlight  of 
the  American  Southwest  blinded  us  as  we  drove  from 
the  end  of  the  track  at  the  cantonment  station  to  the 
drooping  roses  and  poinsettias  in  the  dusty  gardens 
of  the  dak  bangla. 

By  previous  correspondence  with  the  commis- 
sioner at  Peshawar— and  here  let  me  bear  testimony 
to  the  unfailing  courtesy,  the  endless  kindness,  the 
considerate  interest  which  every  English  official  in 
India  accords  to  the  winter  wanderers — through  the 
kindness  of  this  unknown  northern  commissioner 
we  had  been  fully  informed  of  the  preparations 
necessary  for  a  visit  to  the  Khyber,  and  by  dint 
of  many  telegrams  everything  was  in  train  for  our 
arrival.  The  khansamah  at  the  bangla  served  his  tiffin 
on  the  moment,  and  soon  the  babu  of  the  political 
agent  was  there  with  the  permits  to  travel  the  Khyber 
Pass  as  far  as  Ali  Masjid  on  the  following  caravan 
day,  and  with  an  order  for  the  detail  of  sowars  of 
Khyber  Rifles  to  act  as  escort.  Straightway  we 
judged  horses  and  made  bargains  with  splendidly 
whiskered  old  Hassan  Khan  at  his  hospital  of 
broken  vehicles  in  the  bazaar,  and  quoted  to  him 
the  while  the  commissioner's  warning  that  the  only 
danger  in  the  Khyber  Pass  would  be  from  the 
chance  of  an  unbroken  pony  being  put  in  harness. 
The  turbaned  one,  with  his  hand  on  his  heart,  as- 
sured us  that  we  should  have  the  most  safe  and 


262  WINTER  INDIA 

stately  barouche  and  pair  to  convey  us  to  Jamrud, 
at  the  entrance  of  the  pass,  at  sunrise,  and  that  he 
would  speed  us  on  thence  toward  Afghanistan  and 
the  elusive,  illusive,  ever-moving  frontier  in  light 
dog-carts  of  the  variety  known  to  the  natives  as  the 
"tum-tum"  (tandem).  All  this  for  sixteen  ru- 
pees, ''and  what  your  ladyship  may  please." 

As  "that  narrow  sword-cut  in  the  hills"  was  open 
and  guarded  only  on  Tuesdays  and  Fridays,  the 
two  caravan  days  of  each  week,  there  was  stir  in 
Peshawar  city  and  cantonment  that  day.  Long 
caravan  trains  of  camels  and  donkeys  were  then 
filing  out  and  across  the  dusty  plain  to  pass  the 
night  in  the  fortified  serai  below  Jamrud  fort, 
ready  for  a  sunrise  start  through  the  defile  to  Lundi 
Khana  at  the  Afghan  end,  where  no  white  traveler 
goes,  save  by  very  special  arrangement  with  civil 
and  military  authorities. 

Peshawar,  once  an  Afghan  city  in  fact,  still  bears 
all  its  Persian  and  Central  Asian  characteristics; 
and  this  flat-roofed  city  within  its  great  mud  walls 
is  also  a  metropolis,  a  little  Paris  for  all  Central 
Asia,  whither  flock  Afghans  and  turbaned  folk  from 
over  the  border  to  shop  and  spend  their  money,  to 
luxuriate  and  dissipate  in  all  the  ways  of  Orient 
and  Occident  there  combined,  and  to  hatch  fresh 
conspiracies  against  Pax  Britannica,  One  must 
read  his  Kipling  to  enjoy  Peshawar,  and  must  see 
Peshawar  and  its  people  fully  to  enjoy  Kipling. 
All  through  "  The  Man  Who  Would  be  King," 
"The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft,"  "The  Man  Who 
Was,"   "The  Lost  Regiment,"  and  "Wee   Willie 


THE  END  OF   THE   INDIAN   EMPIRE  263 

Winkie, ' '  and  in  the  "  Ballad  of  the  King 's  Jest, ' '  are 
pictures  and  glimpses  of  Peshawar,  the  Pathans  and 
the  hills,  that  flash  upon  one's  memory  at  every  turn. 
With  Peshawar,  too,  are  associated  all  the  great 
names  of  Anglo-Indian  history  of  the  past  half-cen- 
tury,—Lawrence,  Edwards,  Nicholson,  and  both  the 
Robertses. 

The  great  cantonment  at  the  end  of  the  track 
is  one  of  the  chief  military  stations  of  the  empire, 
and  while  it  rejoices  in  a  crisp,  electric  air  worthy 
of  a  sanatorium  in  midwinter,  its  climate  for  the 
rest  of  the  year  gives  it  an  evil  name.  It  is  another  of 
the  many  "ovens  of  India,"  where  the  thermometer 
rises  to  102°  and  110°  every  summer,  and  where  the 
gray,  beclouded,  breathless  dog-days  during  the 
rains  aggravate  men  to  madness. 

After  all  the  other  bazaars  of  India,  after  the 
Chandni  Chauk  of  Delhi  and  the  brilliant,  theatri- 
cal, spectacular  streets  of  Lahore,  the  bazaars  of 
Peshawar  were  captivating  out  of  all  reason,  and 
held  us  fascinated  until  dusk,  when  lamps  and 
lanterns  threw  strange  illumination  upon  all  the 
picturesque  people  known  to  the  Middle  East.  There 
was  not  so  much  color  as  at  Lahore,  perhaps;  but 
the  fiercely  bearded  ones,  with  their  tremendous  tur- 
l)ans,  long  chogas,  or  caftans,  and  gay  vests,  were 
so  many  hundreds  of  Vereshchagin's  models  turned 
loose,  and  kodak  film  was  reeled  away  by  the  yard 
as  long  as  the  spool  would  turn.  It  was  too  strik- 
ing, too  theatrical,  and  too  spectacular  to  be  the 
every-day  life  at  even  the  farthest  end  of  the  em- 
pire.    Each  little  open  alcove  of  a  shop  along  the 


264  WINTER   INDIA 

broad  street  leading  in  from  the  Edwards  Gate  in 
the  city  wall  held  its  tableau,  its  Vereshchagin 
group  already  posed,  every  man  of  them  six  feet 
tall,  fierce  and  stalwart.  These  "Pathan  devils," 
''these  Kabul-ly  men,"  as  our  bearer  called  them, 
were  as  truculent,  turbulent,  and  untamed  a  lot  as 
one  could  wish  to  see,  and  our  bearer  fairly  quaked 
when  one  of  these  swashbucklers  brushed  against 
him,  or  a  hook-nosed,  wolfish  red-beard  scowled 
at  him  and  contemptuously  discussed  him  with  a 
brother  of  Kabul.  The  Jewish  cast  of  features  was 
unmistakable,  and  the  turbans  and  garments  were 
identical  with  those  worn  by  Moses  and  the  prophets 
—a  biblical  picture,  truly.  These  hulking  giants 
who  strode  about  like  conquerors,  these  picturesque 
cutthroats  and  splendid  fighting  animals,  are  sup- 
posed to  be  harmless,  from  having  been  relieved 
of  their  arms  and  weapons  when  they  entered 
British  territory,  but  no  doubt  every  one  of  them 
had  a  yard-long,  triangular  Afghan  knife  concealed 
within  his  baggy  garments.  All  wore  peaked  caps 
within  the  turban-cloth  and  some  heavy,  striped 
blankets  thrown  theatrically  over  one  shoulder,  but 
the  crocheted  Afghan  of  fancy-work  fairs  was  no- 
where to  be  seen— another  disillusionment  of  travel. 
An  unkempt  old  falconer  with  hooded  bird  on  wrist, 
and  just  such  a  Scythian  sort  of  barbarian  next 
him  as  sculptors  show  in  the  train  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  were  a  pair  that  willingly  posed  for  their 
portraits. 

There  was  such  richness,  such  conglomeration  and 
embarrassment  of  picturesqueness  on  every  hand, 


THE   END  OF   THE   INDIAN   EMPIRE  265 

that  one  needed  the  all-compassing  eyes  of  a  fly  to 
see  it.  Persia's  nearness  was  attested  by  the  grace- 
ful shapes  of  water-pots,  bottles  and  bowls,  the  dam- 
ascened metals  and  the  blue-glazed  pottery;  and 
the  Russian  advance  was  there  in  visible,  tangible 
form  in  the  tall  copper  samovars  that  steamed  and 
hissed  in  the  frequent  tea-shops— the  hand  of  Russia 
seen  in  every  such  gathering-place,  and  the  seeds  of 
sedition  lying  in  every  bowl  of  tea. 

Disputing  passage  with  a  deliberate  ox  loaded 
with  twice  its  bulk  of  fodder-cane,  we  came  through 
a  deep  arch  in  a  wall  to  the  circular  Bokhara,  or  silk 
bazaar,  and  to  a  dazzling  picture  all  light  and  life 
and  color  in  the  blazing,  blinding  sunlight  of  that 
early,  cloudless  afternoon.  Dens  of  alcove  shops 
surrounded  the  great  open  space,  where  leafless  trees 
cast  thin  traceries  of  shadows  over  the  bare  earth, 
and  scores  of  men  sat  in  groups  in  the  sun,  twirling 
reels  of  green,  yellow,  rose,  and  purple  silks,  toss- 
ing glistening  skeins  of  every  hue  as  they  came 
fresh  from  traders'  packs  or  dyers'  vats.  Bales  of 
woven  silks  and  shimmering  lengths  of  gay  tissues 
were  heaped  and  spread  over  the  floors  of  the  tiny 
shops ;  and  sitting  statuesque,  or  moving  in  and  out 
among  the  whirling  spindles,  were  Afghan  and  Bo- 
khara silk  merchants  and  brokers,  who  brightened 
the  scene  with  their  gold-threaded  and  -fringed  tur- 
ban-cloths, gold-embroidered  and  cloth-of-gold  vests 
and  waistcoats,  and  inner  garments  of  gorgeous  Bo- 
khara shadow-silks.  From  "silken  Samarkand," 
from  Bokhara  and  Kabul,  these  men  come  every  win- 
ter to  this  silk  bazaar,  and  huge  bales  of  raw  silks 


266  WINTER  INDIA 

and  woven  stuffs  were  being  unloaded  that  after- 
noon from  groaning  camels  that  had  trod  softly- 
down  from  the  Khanates  to  kneel  in  the  Peshawar 
oval— to  be  reloaded  with  Manchester  piece-goods 
and  tread  slowly  back  again  before  hot  weather. 

There  were  picturesque  money-changers,  too,  in 
this  bazaar — bearded  and  turbaned  old  Persians, 
wrapped  in  long  and  richly  furred  garments,  sit- 
ting somnolent  and  prosperous  in  the  sunshine,  with 
loose  heaps  of  coins  from  all  the  border  countries 
before  them.  One  even  wondered  if  the  rupees  and 
annas,  the  unknown  coins  with  crescents  and  Per- 
sian texts,  and  the  yet  more  insidious  rubles  and 
copecks  were  real, — if  they  were  not  stage  accessories 
and  part  of  the  tableaux  rather  than  the  visible 
capital  and  assets  of  genuine  Shylocks. 

Color  was  rampant  in  the  shoe  bazaar,  the  long 
line  of  cobblers'  lairs  strewn  and  strung  over  with 
peaked  slippers  and  great  strips  of  brightest  red. 
green,  and  yellow  leathers,  and  hung  in  the  sun- 
light to  make  a  braver  show.  In  all  that  leather  ba- 
zaar we  could  not  find  a  pair  of  the  braided  leather 
sandals  or  buskins  that  at  southern  railway  stations 
are  sold  as  Saharanpur  or  Kashmir  shoes,  farther 
north  are  called  Lahore  shoes,  and  in  Lahore  are 
called  Peshawar  shoes.  The  Pathan  public  very 
generally  wore  the  same  conventional  Mohamme- 
dan heelless  slippers,  with  the  pointed  and  curling 
bows  and  high  sterns  of  antique  junks.  Some 
few  wore  wood  or  rawhide  sandals  fastened  by 
heavy  thongs,  the  most  primitive  and  archaic  of 
foot-gear.     There  was  a  narrow  strip  of  railed-off, 


THE  END  OP  THE  INDIAN   EMPIRE  267 

sacred  ground  down  the  middle  of  this  shoe  bazaar, 
which  held  some  venerated  Moslem  tombs,  and  scores 
of  devout  ones,  ranging  themselves  before  them, 
saluted  the  glowing  west  beyond  which  lay  Mecca. 
They  prostrated  themselves  on  their  bits  of  carpets, 
and  prayed  fervently,  deaf  to  the  hum  of  cobblers 
and  idlers  around  them. 

There  were  sweetmeat  sellers  and  sugar-cane  ped- 
dlers hawking  their  wares  through  all  the  bazaars; 
letter-writers  plying  their  craft  in  the  open ;  schools 
of  small  turbans  rocking  in  studious  circles  around 
some  pious  teacher;  and  barbers,  lawyers,  peddlers, 
touts,  and  jugglers.  And  there  were  beggars,  too ! 
Such  beggars !  Such  tattered  and  picturesque  fig- 
ures as  never  before  diverted  one,— Afghan  and  Bo- 
khara beggars,  shaggy  and  ragged  beyond  all  the 
religious  mendicants  of  India.  Coats  of  a  hundred 
patches  hung  in  a  hundred  shreds  from  the  frowzy, 
turbanless  ones,  and  but  half  protected  them  from  the 
keen  mountain  winds  that  blew  through  the  bazaars 
at  sunset.  Many  of  these  were  Pathan  ''saints," 
who  live  in  caves  in  the  hills,  lead  revolts,  and  urge 
the  murder  of  unbelievers.  The  more  holy  of  these 
beggars  cast  glances  of  scorn  and  hatred  at  us 
Kafirs  or  unbelievers;  "white  pagans,"  they  called 
us,  to  the  perturbation  of  our  bearer,  who  seemed 
to  fear  that  some  one  of  these  Islam  saints  might 
brain  him  with  his  long  pipe-stem,  but  with  six  an- 
nas and  a  yard  of  sugar-cane  the  maddest  molla  of 
them  all  was  bought  over  to  stand  tamely  before  the 
kodak.  A  few  of  the  holy  men  coaxed  annas  from 
the  crowds  with  songs  and  story-telling, — even  an 


268  WINTER  INDIA 

infidel  anna  came  not  amiss,— while  others  had  for 
sale  furs,  rugs,  and  bits  of  soft  jade  or  heavily- 
veined  turquoise.  Not  this  side  of  Samarkand  had  I 
expected  to  see  men  with  rugs  piled  on  their  heads 
and  shoulders,  throwing  them  down  at  sight  of  a 
possible  customer,  and  displaying  there  on  the  dusty 
ground  what  treasures  or  trash  they  possessed. 
Men  with  bales  of  furs  and  poshtins,  or  sheepskin 
coats,  for  sale,  paraded  the  bazaars  or  lounged 
by  gates  and  bridges.  One  scowling  giant  had  for 
sale  a  dead  peacock,  a  sacred  Hindu  bird,  another 
showed  a  leopard-skin;  and  there  were  blue-eyed, 
woolly  Persian  cats  on  view,  whose  dispositions  had 
been  so  crossed  somewhere  in  transit  that  they  would 
only  spit,  glare,  and  claw  at  any  possible  purchasers 
who  ventured  near. 

The  jewelers'  dens  had  their  gossiping  groups, 
and  the  leisurely  jewel  merchants  produced  bags, 
tins,  and  bottles  of  seventh-rate  pearls  and  talisman 
turquoises,  cemented  on  sticks,  all  quoted  at  soaring 
prices.  A  woman  in  a  gaily-embroidered  red  and 
yellow  phulkari  or  Afghan  head-sheet,  who  sat 
watching  the  hammering  of  a  bracelet,  was  a  moving 
exhibit  of  jewels,  that  furnished  a  feast  to  the  eye 
when  combined  with  her  own  beauty.  But  we  were 
plainly  no  feast  to  her  scornful  eyes,  and,  after  a 
critical  inventory  of  our  dusty  traveling  attire,  her 
glances  and  shrugs  sufficiently  translated  her  re- 
marks to  the  merchant  of  high  prices  and  doubtful 
gems. 

Even  to  that  far  end  of  the  Indian  Empire,  the 
tout  dogged  one's  steps  with  his  monotonous  plead- 


1  UK    .MAIi    Mnl.l.A.    I'KSH  AWAl: 


THE  END  OP  THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE  271 

ing : '  *  Please  come  my  shop !  Please  come  my  shop ! '  * 
and  our  repeated  "Jaos!"  glanced  harmlessly  past 
his  ear.  To  stop  the  whining  pleas  of  the  most  per- 
sistent one  we  followed  him  down  a  side  street,  up  a 
dark  stairway,  and  on  to  a  flat  roof  from  which 
we  reached  inner  rooms  piled  high  with  rugs  and 
stuffs,  where  we  might  sit  on  floor  cushions  and  toss 
glittering  embroideries  and  rolls  of  shadowy-pat- 
terned Bokhara  silks  and  sheeny  stuffs  from  "silken 
Samarkand"  to  our  hearts'  content.  In  another 
shop  men  were  busily  ornamenting  squares  of  dark 
cloth  with  showy  Afghan  waxwork.  A  pan  of  a 
white,  waxy  dough  stood  on  a  charcoal  brazier  beside 
each  worker,  who,  laying  a  dab  of  the  hot  compound 
on  the  back  of  his  hand  as  a  palette,  drew  from  it  a 
long,  viscous  thread  which  he  dropped  in  continuous 
arabesques  and  traceries  over  a  faintly  outlined  pat- 
tern. This  waxen  relief  was  dusted  over  with  silver, 
gold,  or  bronze  powder  before  it  cooled,  and  there 
resulted  gaudy  and  tawdry  curtains  and  table-covers, 
that  in  dusty,  mildewed,  and  bedrabbled  condition 
add  to  the  fustiness  and  shabbiness  of  so  many  Brit- 
ish-India hotel  interiors. 

There  was  a  picturesque  salt  and  corn  bazaar  in 
a  vast  open  space,  and  the  fragrance  and  the  cheery 
music  of  popping  corn  drew  us  directly  to  the  booth 
where,  in  a  huge  turban  and  tremendous  trousers, 
the  pop-corn  man  stirred  the  snapping  kernels  with 
a  bunch  of  twigs  in  a  great,  shallow  iron  pan.  The 
pan  rested  on  the  same  rude  mud  oven  and  was  fur- 
nished with  the  same  layer  of  black  sand  as  is  used 
by  hot-chestnut  men  in  Peking  and  all  North  China. 


272  WINTER  INDIA 

Peshawar  pop-corn  was  as  edible  under  its  Pushtu 
name  as  at  the  Chicago  World's  Fair,  barring  the 
grit  of  the  black  sand  driven  into  every  snowy  ker- 
nel. Sweetmeat  shops  and  peddlers'  stands  over- 
flowed with  gujack  and  kindred  candies,  thickly  pep- 
pered with  the  dust  of  the  streets. 

The  caravans  bring  down  the  white  Kabul  grapes 
which,  packed  in  cotton  in  small,  round  wooden  boxes, 
are  sold  at  remotest  railway  stations  all  over  India 
each  winter;  and  such  mountainous  stores  of  pis- 
tachios, almonds,  walnuts,  raisins,  figs,  and  fruits 
from  fertile  Afghan  and  Persian  vales,  as  made  one 
imagine  a  great  horn  of  plenty  had  been  tipped 
through  the  Khyber  Pass  and  its  contents  spread  over 
Peshawar  plain.  For  twenty  centuries  at  least  the 
povindahs,  or  traveling  merchants,  have  brought  car- 
avans down  from  Kabul,  Bokhara,  and  Samarkand 
every  autumn.  They  bring  horses,  wool,  woolen 
stuffs,  silks,  dyes,  gold  thread,  fruits,  and  precious 
stones,  fighting  and  buying  their  way  to  British 
lines,  where,  leaving  their  arms,  they  are  free  and 
safe  to  wander  at  will  to  Delhi,  Agra,  and  Calcutta, 
appearing  even  at  Rangoon  and  Tuticorin  each  win- 
ter. The  railway  has  changed  something  of  their 
habits  now,  and  all  save  the  horse-dealers  leave  their 
animals  to  graze  near  Peshawar  while  they  take 
train  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  peninsula,  and, 
returning  when  their  wares  are  sold,  lead  their 
camels  back  to  the  cool  plateaus  and  valleys  of  the 
north  for  the  summer. 

Kafila,  or  caravans,  bringing  more  and  more  of 
Afghan  wares,   were  defiling   in  through  the  city 


THE  END  OF   THE   INDIAN  EMPIRE  273 

gates,  and  toward  sundown  the  great  square  of  the 
caravansary  was  full  of  groaning  camels,  and  the 
loads  of  merchandise  grew  to  mountain  heights. 
A  fountain  and  a  sacred  spot  of  prayer  is  reserved 
in  the  center  of  the  serai,  and  there  caravan- 
men  and  camel-drivers  cleansed  and  prayed,  their 
faces  to  the  west,  oblivious  of  all  the  acre  of  pro- 
testing beasts  and  wrangling  men,  screaming  ped- 
dlers, chanting  beggars,  and  even  the  shouts  of  a 
bear-leader,  who  danced  and  wrestled  with  his 
shaggy  pet  to  the  very  edges  of  the  prayer-carpets. 
The  serai's  inclosure,  the  Ghor  Kattri,  has  always 
been  holy  ground.  On  this  spot  first  stood  the  great 
vihara  of  Kanishka's  time  that  was  four  hundred 
feet  high  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  circumference, 
chief  fane  when  all  this  valley  was  head  center  of 
Buddhism.  To  it  came  Pahien  and  Hiouen  Thsang, 
those  Chinese  pilgrims  of  the  fifth  and  seventh  cen- 
turies, who,  crossing  Tatary  and  Turkestan,  came 
down  through  the  Khyber  Pass  to  visit  the  holy 
lands  of  the  Buddhist  faith.  In  their  time,  too,  a 
great  suburban  stupa  sheltered  the  golden  begging- 
bowl  of  Sakya-Muni,  "the  holy  grail  of  Eastern 
legends,"  which,  brought  here  from  Benares,  was 
carried  to  Persia,  and  then  is  said  to  have  been 
looted  by  a  marauder  and  taken  to  Kandahar;  and 
Mohammedans  treasure  the  so-called  Buddha's  bowl 
— a  great  bronze  or  iron  caldron.  Peshawar  once 
had  its  Bodhi-druma  (Tree  of  Knowledge),  de- 
scendant of  the  Bo-tree  at  Buddha-Gaya,  planted 
by  Kanishka,  the  Scythian  ruler  of  the  Panjab, 
according   to    one   legend  j    it   had    already    grown 


274  WINTER  INDIA 

to  a  shelter  sufficient  for  Buddha  when  he  ap- 
peared to  foretell  the  coming  of  Kanishka,  ac- 
cording to  another  version.  At  any  rate,  it  was  a 
pipul-tree  of  uncommon  size,  and  held  in  such  es- 
teem that  the  conquering  Baber,  the  Bokharan,  saw 
and  described  it  when  he  came  this  way  in  1505.  All 
this  Peshawar  plain  has  yielded  rich  store  of  Bud- 
dhist relies,  records,  sculptures,  and  inscriptions, 
including  the  finest  examples  shown  in  the  Lahore 
and  Calcutta  museums  and  in  London. 

The  holy  spot  of  Peshawar,  in  these  modern  times, 
is  the  jail,  where  so  many  hillside  saints  from  the 
border  have  been  put  for  stalking  British  sentries, 
sniping  stragglers,  and  inciting  the  tribesmen  to 
mischief  and  revolt  in  the  name  of  the  Prophet, 
that  the  great  barred  building  is  crowded  at  times 
with  these  vagabonds.  As  the  abode  of  saints, 
the  building  has  all  the  sacredness  and  vogue  of  a 
temple,  and  is  a  place  of  popular  pilgrimage.  Fanatic 
Mohammedans  have  even  committed  petty  crimes 
in  bazaar  and  cantonment  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
gaining  admission  to  this  saints'  abode  and  rest: 
and,  with  such  crazy  people  to  deal  with,  one  may 
well  admire  the  spectacle  of  England's  humane  and 
patient  rule  on  the  border. 

From  the  top  of  the  city  wall  near  the  old  temple 
there  was  a  fine  view  of  the  city,  the  hazy,  lilac 
plain,  and  the  snow-striped  mountains  just  showing 
through  the  clouds  of  mingled  dust  and  frost-haze 
on  the  Jamrud  road.  The  rugged  mountains  rose 
and  grew  sharper  in  outline  as  the  sun  fell,  one 
higher  and  whiter  peak  marking  where  the  Khyber 


THE  END  OF   THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE  275 

cleaves  its  way  through  to  the  Afghan  plain  of 
Jellalabad,  only  forty  miles  distant.  But  beyond 
the  Safed  Koh  lies— Russia!  And  upon  all  that 
northwestern  sky  we  saw  projected  the  great  shadow 
of  the  double  eagle,  rather  than  the  Afghan  sym- 
bol of  the  tree. 

The  gold  and  ruby  mists  of  the  plain  soon  faded  to 
cold  violet  shadows  and  purple  darkness,  and  the 
flat  white  roofs  around  us  were  indefinite  when  the 
great  demonstration  in  the  sky  was  over.  The  crisp 
autumn  air  grew  momently  sharper  as  we  haggled 
through  the  gharry  door  for  a  last  bargain  in  Bo- 
khara silk,  and  drove,  that  January  night,  to  the 
dark,  cheerless,  stone-floored  dak  bangla  which  stood 
a  thousand  feet  above  sea-level,  north  latitude  thirty- 
four  degrees,  Fahrenheit  many  less. 


15 


CHAPTER  XX 

THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH   THE   CARAVANS 

NE  who  reads  much  of  British  and  An- 
glo-Indian print  learns  that  the  In- 
dian Empire  is  not  only  bounded  on 
the  north  by  the  Himalayas  and  their 
continuation,  the  Hindu  Kush,  but 
that  running  with  these  lofty  boundaries  are  artifi- 
cial, imaginary  lines  marking  the  administrative, 
the  defensive,  the  strategic,  political,  geographic, 
actual,  military,  temporary,  and  prospective  fron- 
tiers. Then,  too,  says  Lord  Curzon  (London  Times, 
December  20,  1894)  :  "Our  frontier  must  be,  not  hy- 
pothetical, fluctuating,  adventitious,  but  definite, 
recognizable,  scientific,"  adding  yet  more  to  the  list 
of  qualitative  adjectives  commonly  applied  to  the 
word  frontier— never  meaning  anything,  however, 
but  the  northwest  frontier,  in  Anglo-Indian  speech. 
One  might  naturally  wish  to  see  the  region  of  such 
an  aggregation  of  frontiers,  where  boundaries  run 
like  contour-lines  on  a  topographic  map— the  waver- 
ing, imaginary  lines  upon  the  earth's  Asiatic  sur- 
face, for  which,  and  to  which,  literally,  millions  of 
lives  have  been  sacrificed — expressions  of  an  "idea" 
for  which  many  more  lives  must  be  given. 

276 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  277 

One  hears,  too,  the  Russian  advance  daily  dis- 
cussed and  harped  upon  all  over  India,  until  it 
becomes  as  real  a  fact  as  the  Aryan  migration 
or  the  Mogul  invasion,  and  one  wishes  to  see 
where  the  next  great  history-making  incident  will 
certainly  occur— the  theater  where  the  greatest 
world-drama  since  Timur's  time  will  be  played. 
One  becomes  so  familiar  with  this  fixed  idea  of  the 
Russians  coming  down  through  the  Khyber  Pass 
and  snatching  the  great  jewel  of  the  British  crown, 
that  he  can  jest  with  British  friends  about  all 
Anglo-India  lying  awake  of  nights,  frightened  by 
the  Russian  bogy,  and  can  advise  them  to  rent  the 
Panjab  to  Russia  outright,  and  so  have  it  over  with 
quickly,  and  enjoy  sound  sleep  again.  But  the 
Briton  takes  his  northwest  frontier— his  many  fron- 
tiers—seriously, sees  the  Russian  hand  in  every  lit- 
tle border  war,  and  finds  no  humor  in  the  charge 
that  every  time  he  cries,  ' '  The  Russian !  The  Rus- 
sian!" as  Afridis,  Waziris,  and  Kafirs  revolt,  he 
is  playing  the  part  of  the  boy  who  too  often  cried, 
"The  wolf!  The  wolf !"— albeit  this  boy  claims 
to  have  found  many  incriminating  documents  and 
positive  proof  of  the  trail  of  the  Muscovite  wolf 
in  the  abandoned  camps  and  villages  of  warring 
tribesmen. 

It  was  bitterly  cold  that  night  in  the  govern- 
ment house  of  rest  for  travelers ;  and  as  the  two 
opposite  doors  of  our  grand  salon  of  a  room  gave 
directly  upon  garden  and  court,  we  had  sweeps  of 
icy  air  through  it  whenever  a  servant  entered,  and 
such  currents  across  the  floor  from  two-inch  cracks 


278  WINTER  INDIA 

below  each  door  that  we  soon  retreated  to  the  high 
string-beds,  and,  wrapped  in  rugs  and  razais, 
longed  for  steam-heated  and  furnace-cheered 
America.  The  small  pocket  of  a  fireplace  sheltered 
some  hissing  green  twigs  that  smoldered  and  filled 
the  room  with  smoke  which  refused  to  escape  by  a 
transom  window  sixteen  feet  up  in  the  absurdly 
high,  windward  wall — which  same  north  window 
was  ropeless  and  wedged  open  to  encourage  further 
the  icy  drafts  that  encircled  us.  The  khansamah, 
bearing  the  courses  of  the  dinner,  was  swept  in  with 
a  small  gale  each  time,  but  we  dined  well  on  the 
usual  Indian  menu.  The  khansamah  made  a  final 
entry  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  bearing  proudly  the 
proper  British  tart  of  conclusion.  "But,  missis — " 
he  pleaded  in  injured  tones  when  I  too  had  said, 
"No,  thanks."  I  had  too  often  suffered  in  ar- 
guments with  British  pastry  to  hazard  it  in  far 
places,  but  I  relented  to  this  courteous  old  soul  and 
gave  the  heavy  serving-spoon  the  swing  and  force 
of  a  golfer's  club,  when  pouf!  pou-s-sh!  went  a 
fountain  spray  of  minute  flakes  of  true  puff-paste 
up  into  the  air  and  down  in  showers  all  over  the 
table.  And  we  gathered  them  up— every  last  flimsy 
flakelet— and  with  praises  consumed  the  khansa- 
mah's  masterpiece,  the  very  apotheosis  of  covered 
apple-pie,  the  most  supremely  perfect  tart  the  Brit- 
ish flag  ever  floated  over — away  off  there  in  the 
shadow  of  the  Hindu  Kush,  on  the  borderland  of 
the  heart  of  the  world,  close  to  the  old  Aryan  home 
of  the  pie  people's  first  ancestors. 

"Pie,  sir,"  said  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  "goes  with 


THROUGH  KHYBEK  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  279 

civilization ;  where  there  is  no  civilization,  there  is 
no  pie. ' '  Hence  Peshawar,  etc. ;  and  one  more  count 
may  be  added  to  the  great  total  of  what  England  has 
done  for  India. 

In  what  seemed  only  the  middle  of  that  arctic 
night  we  heard  our  servant  beating  on  the  cook- 
house door  with  such  an  alarum  as  might  herald  the 
coming  of  the  Russians;  and  after  the  misery  of 
a  candle-light  breakfast  we  drove  away  in  the  frosty 
dawn,  the  sun  rising  behind  us  in  a  haze  of  pink  and 
purple,  lilac  and  burning  crimson,  as  we  made 
straight  toward  the  mountain  wall.  The  carriage- 
road  to  Jamrud  fort  runs  for  all  the  ten  miles  close 
beside  the  caravan  track,  on  which  were  lines  of  slow- 
moving  camels,  enveloped  in  clouds  of  glorified 
golden  dust— a  fine,  loose  sort  of  powder,  as  light  and 
dry  and  white  as  flour  or  snow,  covering  the  broad 
caravan  track  five  and  six  inches  deep.  Every  one 
abroad  was  beating  his  arms  and  stamping  his  feet 
to  keep  warm,  and  we  soon  shrouded  our  heads  in 
rugs  as  shelter  from  the  icy  wind  and  choking  dust, 
and  to  hide  from  our  sight  the  path  of  the  projected 
railway  which  travelers  now  use  to  Jamrud. 

At  Jamrud  fort,  towering  picturesquely  at  the 
edge  of  the  plain,  we  gave  up  the  spacious  carriage 
and  waited  for  guard-mount  and  the  signal-shot  to 
declare  the  Khyber  open  for  the  day.  This  last 
British  outpost  was  apparently  the  frontier.  We 
must  then  have  been  close  to  Afghanistan.  But 
no.  Lord  Curzon  had  written  (London  Times,  Jan- 
uary 2,  1895),  "Without  exaggeration  it  may  be 
said,  that  where  Afghan  territory  commences,  there 


280  WINTER  INDIA 

British  territory  ends,  and  that  the  true  British 
frontier  is  not  at  Jamrud,  but  at  Lundi  Khana. " 
Yet  the  political  agent  would  not  let  us  go  even 
to  that  edge  of  India  and  look  over;  would  only 
guarantee  our  safety  to  and  let  us  drive  as  far 
as  Ali  Masjid,  half-way  to  Lundi  Khana.  A  merely 
hypothetical  frontier  that  of  Ali  Masjid,  and  Jam- 
rud nothing  but  the  administrative  frontier. 

The  native  officer  on  duty  at  the  Jamrud  gates 
took  our  passes  and  presented  the  visitors'  book,  in 
which  register  it  was  written  and  underscored: 
''Gentlemen  visiting  Khyber  Pass  are  requested  not 
to  give  money  to  the  sowars,  as  it  is  setting  a  dan- 
gerous precedent" — advice  which  seemed  reason- 
able when  my  special  military  escort  for  the  day 
appeared,  climbed  up  promptly  on  the  back  seat  of 
a  tum-tum,  and  laid  his  Enfield  rifle  across  his 
knee.  We  felt  the  need  of  arms  ourselves  when  we 
saw  that  handsome,  evil,  reckless-looking  young  ban- 
dit playing  knight-errant  for  the  day,  tidily  dressed 
in  brown  khaki  unifonn,  his  fine  turban-cloth  fringed 
with  gold,  and  his  lean,  Israelitish  face  lighted  with 
the  evil  eye  of  generations  of  robber  ancestors. 

Low  ridges  before  us  rose  to  hills,  and  they  to 
mountains,  and  three  miles  away  at  Kadam  is  the 
real  entrance,  the  beginning  of  the  pass  that  leads  to 
Afghanistan  and  the  mystic  lands  of  Central  Asia, 
through  which  a  procession  of  conquerors  have  come. 
Out  there  have  gone  only  the  British,  bent  on  puni- 
tive expeditions  and  to  the  questionable  triumphs 
of  what  Sir  Charles  Dilke  calls,  ''thrashing  the  Af- 
ghans into  loving  us." 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  281 

No  other  mountain-pass  in  the  world  has  had  and 
retains  such  strategic  importance  and  holds  so  many 
historic  associations  as  this  Khyber  gateway  to  the 
Indian  plain.  In  the  thirty-three  miles  of  its  length 
it  cuts  through  cliffs  of  shale  and  limestone  rock, 
and  from  an  elevation  of  sixteen  hundred  and  sev- 
enty feet  above  the  sea  at  Jamrud  it  rises  to  thirty- 
three  hundred  and  seventy-three  feet  at  Lundi  Ko- 
tal,  beyond  Lundi  Khana,  and  is  never  closed  by 
snow  in  winter.  One  does  not  see  snow-fields  nor 
glaciers,  nor  the  wild,  stupendous  scenery  that  such 
a  pass  in  such  a  mountain-range  should  have.  The 
winter  is  the  season  of  greatest  caravan  trade  and 
travel,  since  the  original,  woolly,  two-humped  Bac- 
trian  camel,  native  of  the  Pamirs,  does  not  endure 
hot  weather  well,  and,  as  in  North  China,  can  only 
travel  at  night  in  midsummer,  while  he  performs 
his  longest  journeys  in  winter. 

This  mountainous  borderland  between  India  and 
Afghanistan  is  occupied  by  the  independent  tribes, 
who  yield  allegiance  to  neither  emperor  nor  amir, 
who  never  have  been  nor  will  be  brought  thoroughly 
under  subjection.  Numbering  over  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand,  all  Mohammedans,  easily  in- 
flamed through  religious  fanaticism,  and  ready  to  re- 
spond to  any  jehad,  or  holy  war,  these  independent 
border  tribes  are  to  be  counted  with  on  every  occa- 
sion. The  twenty  thousand  Afridis  living  in  the 
immediate  Peshawar  frontier  are  the  most  turbu- 
lent, fanatical,  irresponsible  tribe  of  all,  ever  ripe 
for  revolt,  always  scheming  and  conspiring,  ready 
to  attack  the  power  that  supports  them  with  sub- 


282  WINTER  INDIA 

sidies,— literally  quarreling  with  their  own  liread 
and  butter,  or,  what  is  more  vital,  with  their  own 
powder  and  shot.  Loot,  ambush,  and  murder,  rick- 
burning  and  cattle-poisoning  are  daily  or  nightly 
amusements  of  these  fire-worshipers  turned  fire-eat- 
ers, who  have  waylaid,  harried,  and  hung  on  the 
rear  of  every  body  of  troops  that  ever  entered  this 
defile— even  turning  Alexander  the  Great  away  from 
the  Khyber,  so  that  Bucephalus  was  forced  to  pick 
his  steps  to  northward  and  eastward  and  bear  his 
master  down  through  the  Michni  Pass  to  the  Pesha- 
war plain.  They  have  always  lived  by  pillage  and 
blackmail,  taking  a  subsidy  to  guard  and  protect 
the  British  transport  trains  in  the  last  Afghan  war, 
and  then  plundering  the  baggage  and  commissariat 
trains  every  night,  cutting  off  and  sniping  every 
straggler  and  deserter  with  as  much  zeal  as  they 
had  shown  in  robbing  Shere  Ali's  train.  The  steal- 
ing of  arms  and  ammunition  goes  on  all  along  the 
Peshawar  border,  neither  Sepoys  nor  English  sol- 
diers proving  any  match  for  these  accomplished 
thieves,  descended  from  generations  of  freebooters 
and  plunderers,  dedicated  to  the  craft  by  regular 
ceremonies  at  birth,  and  holding  skill  in  that  line 
as  their  greatest  pride  and  boast.  They  have  stolen 
the  carbines  of  European  guards  sleeping  on  those 
arms  in  the  guard-house,  taking  even  the  sword  of 
the  sentry  as  he  rested  it  against  the  wall  beside 
him;  and  they  maintain  a  steady  freemasonry  of 
communication  with  the  British  troops  through  spies 
and  confederates  in  the  native  regiments  and  de- 
serters   returned    to    their    tribes.      Any    saint    or 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  283 

akhoond  or  Mad  Moll  a  can  inflame  them  and  start 
them  on  a  religious  crusade  against  the  infidel,  and 
every  little  hill  village  has  its  saint  or  saint's  tomb 
to  make  it  a  place  of  distinction  and  pious  pil- 
grimage. It  is  even  told  of  one  clan  of  Afridis 
that,  lacking  such  pious  attraction  in  their  village, 
they  lured  a  saint  their  way,  killed  him,  and  set  up 
a  tomb  worthy  of  neighborly  envy. 

"Nothing  is  finer  than  their  physique,  or  worse 
than  their  morals,"  wrote  Sir  II.  Edwards  long  ago; 
and  Sir  Richard  Temple  has  said:  "Now  these  tribes 
are  savages,  noble  savages  perhaps,  and  not  with- 
out some  tincture  of  virtue  and  generosity,  but  still 
absolutely  barbarians,  nevertheless.  They  have  no- 
thing approaching  to  government  or  civil  institu- 
tions ;  they  have,  for  the  most  part,  no  education ; 
they  have  nominally  a  religion,  but  Mohammedan- 
ism as  understood  by  them  is  no  better,  or  per- 
haps is  actually  worse,  than  the  creeds  of  the  wildest 
races  of  the  earth.  In  their  eyes  the  one  great  com- 
mandment is  blood  for  blood,  and  fire  and  sword 
for  all  infidels." 

"We  are  content  with  discord,  we  are  content 
with  alarms,  we  are  content  with  blood,  but  we  will 
never  be  content  with  a  master,"  said  one  of  these 
turbulent  turbans  to  Elphinstone;  and  the  Amir 
was  well  rid  of  the  lot  when  the  Gandamak  Treaty 
in  1879  declared  these  tribes  independent,  nominally 
under  the  political  control  of  the  British,  who  have 
vainly  tried  the  policy  of  conciliation  and  subsidy 
varied  with  occasional  thrashings.  Only  personal 
influence,  and  rough  and  ready,  quick  justice  can 


284  WINTER  INDIA 

avail  with  them.  Colonel  Warburton  held  them 
wonderfully  in  check  for  twenty  years  by  a  kindly, 
paternal  rule,  and  their  confidence  in  him  justified 
the  saying  that  his  presence  on  the  frontier  was 
worth  any  ten  garrisons.  He  retired  when  his  age 
limit  was  reached,  and  on  the  heels  of  his  departure 
came  the  revolt  of  the  tribes  and  the  closing  of  the 
Khyber.  Colonel  Warburton  offered  his  services 
to  return  to  India  and  try  to  pacify  the  tribes  again, 
but  they  were  declined,  and  the  border  war  con- 
tinued from  July,  1897,  to  January,  1898,  General 
Lockhart  for  months  employing  against  these  hill 
guerrillas  a  greater  army  than  that  which  defeated 
Napoleon  at  Waterloo. 

"The  forward  party"  of  Anglo-Indians  argues 
that  these  border  tribes  are  an  inexhaustible  recruit- 
ing-ground of  the  finest  fighting  material  in  the 
world,  and  that  for  the  British  not  to  avail  them- 
selves of  it  would  be  virtually  giving  Russia  this 
almost  ready-made  army.  Another  faction  argues 
that  the  tribesmen,  once  drilled  and  taught  the  tac- 
tics of  war,  will  be  more  formidable  enemies  of 
the  British  than  ever,  more  ready  to  revolt,  to  join 
Afghans  or  Russians.  Lugubrious  prophets  declare 
that  when  the  struggle  comes  the  British  must 
win  the  first  battle  in  Afghanistan  or  lose  all  India 
—the  Mohammedan  Nizam  of  Hyderabad,  with  his 
great  army,  being  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of  India, 
in  any  serious  disturbances  that  may  arise  with 
Mohammedans  on  the  northwest  frontier.  One 
specialist  even  wrote  out  and  tabulated  his  fears 
in    a   "confidential    book"   to   his   government,    in 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  285 

which  he  figured  out  every  detail  of  the  probable 
Russian  transport  problems,  their  line  of  march,  the 
points  of  attack,  and  their  possible  resistance.  A 
copy  of  this  confidential  and  reliable  guide  to  the 
conquest  of  India  was  promptly  obtained  by  the 
Russian  government,  translated  and  sent  broadcast 
through  the  Russian  army  as  a  manual  of  tactics, 
a  handy  sort  of  military  Murray  for  Muscovite 
use  when  the  Czar  is  quite  ready  for  another  win- 
ter visit  to  India.  Russia  has  now  reached  the  Pa- 
mirs and  the  borders  of  Kashmir;  Bokhara  is  hers, 
and  Persia,  virtually;  exploring  parties  of  Russian 
soldiers  have  twice  crossed  the  Hindu  Kush,  sur- 
prised of  course  to  find  they  were  in  India,  within 
British  lines;  and  Kipling  has  depicted  the  Russian 
spy  in  "The  Man  Who  Was,"  in  which  the  retir- 
ing Dirkovich  says,  "Au  revoir!"  and,  pointing  to 
the  Khyber,  adds,  ''That  way  is  always  open." 

The  conquest  of  India  is  the  dream  and  the  duty 
of  all  Russians,  and  having  closely  followed  every 
other  clause  of  advice  in  that  remarkable  and  much- 
questioned  paper  known  as  the  will  of  Peter  the 
Great,  they  are  not  once  forgetting  this  one : 

VIII.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  commerce  of  India  is  the  com- 
merce of  the  world,  that  he  who  can  exclusively  control  it  is  the 
dictator  of  Europe  ;  no  occasion  should  therefore  be  lost  to  pro- 
voke war  with  Persia,  to  hasten  its  decay,  to  advance  to  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  then  to  endeavor  to  re-establish  the  ancient 
trade  of  the  Levant  through  Sj'ria. 

While  England  has  been  pushing  her  frontiers 
northward  for  the  good  of  the  native,  and  to  give  the 


286  WINTER  INDIA 

Pathans  good  government,  schools,  hospitals,  pure 
water,  and  sanitary  redemption  generally,  Russia, 
the  pure  philanthropist,  is  pushing  her  frontiers 
southward  with  the  sole  object  of  evangelizing  the 
Khanates  and  bringing  these  people  out  of  spiritual 
darkness. 

Through  the  efforts  of  Colonel  Warburton,  for 
twenty  years  the  political  agent  at  Peshawar  (and 
a  worthy  successor  of  those  other  splendid  examples 
of  the  British  official,  Lawrence,  Edwards,  and 
Nicholson,  and  those  rare  men  of  earlier  border  and 
Mutiny  days),  the  marauding  tribesmen  were  taken 
in  firm  hand  when  their  independence  was  guaran- 
teed. The  Afridis  themselves  were  made  to  guard 
and  guarantee  the  safety  of  travelers  in  the  Khyber, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  examples  of  setting 
a  thief  to  catch  a  thief  that  was  ever  known.  From 
1879  to  1897  the  government  paid  an  annual  subsidy 
of  eighty  thousand  rupees  to  the  Afridi  and  Shin- 
wari  clans  on  condition  that  they  keep  open  and 
guard  the  caravan  track  through  the  pass,  live  in 
peace,  and  do  not  raid  British  territory.  By  tolls 
levied  on  each  camel  and  vehicle  passing  Jamrud, 
the  Indian  government  raised  annually  an  amount 
sufficient  to  pay  off  part  of  the  subsidy  and  main- 
tain "Colonel  Warburton 's  road,"  as  the  tribesmen 
call  it.  Following  easy  grades,  this  road  could  be  as 
easily  traversed  by  an  artillery  train  as  by  light 
tum-tums ;  although,  to  avoid  expensive  cuttings  and 
tunnels,  the  projected  railway  into  Afghanistan  will 
follow  the  track  of  Alexander  the  Great  along  the 
Kabul  River  and  through  the  Michni  Pass. 


CAK.WANS    IN     llli;    KIIYRKK    I'ASS. 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  289 

Colonel  Warburton  made  levies  of  tribesmen,  con- 
stituted them  the  Khyber  Rifles,  to  police  and  guard 
the  pass,  and  assigned  them  to  six  fortified  posts 
between  Jamrud  and  Lundi  Kotal,  A  force  of  eight 
hundred  infantry  and  thirty  troopers  were  recruited 
from  the  wild  robbers  of  the  region  and  set  to  keep- 
ing off  the  other  robbers.  The  infantry  were  paid 
nine  rupees  a  month,  the  troopers  twenty-six  rupees, 
each  man  providing  his  own  khaki  uniform,  and 
the  trooper  the  keep  of  his  own  horse.  Their  com- 
mander. Colonel  Islam  Khan,  who  drilled  and 
brought  the  corps  to  such  efficiency  and  roused  in 
these  hill  guerrillas  the  military  pride  that  seemed 
to  animate  them  when  once  inside  the  Queen's  uni- 
form, is  a  descendant  of  the  former  ruling  Afghan 
family,  and  served  with  the  British  in  the  last  Af- 
ghan war.  On  caravan  days  his  sentries  were  sta- 
tioned at  every  hundred  yards  along  the  pass,  troop- 
ers patrolled  it,  and  the  Khyber  was  as  safe  as 
Broadway  or  Piccadilly,— safe  until  the  sunset  gun 
proclaimed  the  military  day  ended,  and  the  Khyber 
sowars,  dropping  uniforms  and  rifles,  became  pred- 
atory tribesmen  again,  ready  to  loot  a  camel,  cut 
a  throat,  steal  the  arras  of  any  soldier,  or  make  away 
with  any  stray  man,  horse,  or  camel  found  out  after 
dark. 

Bugle-calls  and  rifle-shots  announced  that  the 
pass  was  open,  the  gates  of  the  serai  below  Jamrud 
swung  back,  and  some  six  hundred  scornful  and 
unhappy-looking  camels,  with  great  shags  of  fur  on 
neck  and  legs,  dragged  their  deliberate  way  out,  and 
in  single  file  went  swayiag  along  the  road  to  Af- 


290  WINTER  INDIA 

ghanistan.  Each  belled  leader  was  led  by  a  man 
on  foot,  and  other  camels  were  fastened  one  to  an- 
other by  long  guide-ropes.  Groups  of  shaggy  cara- 
van-men paused  to  pray  by  a  wayside  shrine  at  the 
outset  of  their  journey,  and  then  trudged  on,  they 
no  better  groomed,  no  more  sociable  or  joyful  than 
their  camels. 

Our  bearer  was  in  a  panic  of  fright.  "Yes,  you 
must  drive  fast,"  he  said,  with  chattering  teeth  and 
timorous  looks  over  his  shoulder.  "I  tell  you  true. 
I  am  your  servant,  not  your  enemy.  These  Kabul-ly 
men  are  all  Russians,  enemies  of  the  country,  bad 
and  dangerous.  They  shoot— hang !  They  kill— 
hang!  every  time.  They  always  rob.  Hold  fast  your 
money.  Let  no  one  see  your  watch  to-day.  These 
Kabul-ly  men  are  not  men.  They  are  animals— wild 
animals  of  the  jungle.  They  fight,  they  cut,  they 
shoot!— oh!  oh!" 

**But  there  is  the  sowar  and  his  gun.  We  need 
not  be  afraid,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  said  the  trembling  Hindu,  "that  is  just 
the  danger.  All  these  Pathans  are  devils.  Sowar 
one  day,  robber  next  day.  They  take  England's 
money;  shoot  and  rob  England's  men.  They  are 
all  Russians,  enemies  of  the  country.  Just  now  the 
sowar  is  England's  soldier.  Pour-o'clock  gun  goes 
hang!  and  he  is  wild  man  again,  England's  enemy." 

The  smooth,  hard  carriage-road  wound  farther  in 
among  the  yellow  hills,  and  the  camel-train  was 
soon  far  behind  and  out  of  sight.  We  were  as  an 
advance-guard,  the  first  passengers  of  the  day,  and 
the  riflemen  sitting  on  the  rocks  and  perched  on 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  291 

hill  crests  every  hundred  yards  exchanged  greeting 
glances  with  the  sowar  that  sent  more  cold  chills 
down  the  inert  Hindu  spine.  There  were  round  stone 
towers  and  square  mud  towers  of  defense  as  thick 
as  sentry-boxes,  and  the  khaki  clothes  and  turbans, 
toning  in  with  the  stones  and  barren  ground,  made 
many  of  the  sentries  invisible  until  we  saw  a  gun- 
barrel  move  or  a  bayonet  flash.  It  was  a  radiant, 
perfect,  sunny  day,  the  sky  one  vast  pale  turquoise, 
soft  and  pure  and  gently  blue,  and  in  among  the 
hills  the  air  was  still,  and  only  fresh  enough  to 
make  the  swift  ride  exhilarating.  Around  Kadam's 
mud  hovels  there  were  innumerable  caves  in  the 
hills,  where  hermits  had  lived  in  meditation  in  Bud- 
dhist days,  and  where  Mohammedan  saints  of  un- 
washed and  doubtful  sanctity  now  spend  lives  of 
leisure,  enjoying  the  climate  and  view,  subsisting 
on  villagers'  offerings,  and  giving  themselves  to 
much  mad  exhortation,  animadversion  of  England's 
rule,  and  mouthings  of  Allah  il  allah! 

There  the  pass  really  begins— a  narrow  ravine 
which  runs  between  steep  heights.  Battlemented 
walls  and  far  fortresses  on  crests  suggested  all  the 
frontiers  we  had  come  to  see,  but  it  was  a  deserted 
road.  There  was  no  procession  of  brigands  coming 
down  steep  places  at  the  back  of  the  stage,  as  would 
have  become  the  historic  pass.  The  identical  defile 
where  rode  Timur  and  Jenghiz  Khan,  Baber  the 
Bokharan,  and  Nadir  Shah  with  the  Great  Mo- 
gul's Koh-i-nur  in  his  turban  and  ten  jeweled  pea- 
cock thrones  following  after  him— really,  at  the  be- 
ginning,  this   defile   lacks   the   wild,   melodramatic 


292  WINTER  INDIA 

scenery  appropriate  to  its  history.  It  was  not  as 
striking,  in  the  landscape  way,  as  the  Nankow  Pass 
by  the  Great  Wall  of  China.  At  every  little  up- 
grade my  pony  balked  until  the  sais  got  down  and 
led  him  by  out-stretched  bridle  to  the  top  of  the 
hill.  When  I  demurred  at  myself  dismounting  to 
walk  up  the  next  trifling  hill,  the  gentle  sais  whined : 
"Gentlemen  go  Khyber  Pass  always  walk  up  hills." 
The  sowar  lounged  in  splendid  ease  on  the  back  seat 
of  his  tum-tum,  dawdling  his  Enfield  on  his  knee, 
and  watching  us  from  on  high  as  we  toiled  up  each 
gentle  gradient  after  him. 

"How  about  that  sowar?  If  gentlemen  always 
walk  up  hills  in  Khyber  Pass,  why  does  n't  he  get 
down  and  walk?" 

' '  Oh !  Sowar  no  gentleman, ' '  said  the  naive  one. 
But  at  the  next  hill  a  disgusted  Khyberi,  no  gentle- 
man that  he  was,  dismounted  and  walked  too. 

At  last  Ali  Majid's  battlemented  towers,  crown- 
ing a  pyramidal  hill  at  the  middle  of  the  pass,  came 
in  range,  most  picturesque  of  many  great  fortresses 
of  India,  completing  the  wild  landscape  which,  in 
turn,  it  conunands.  There  the  pass  is  narrowest, 
only  fifteen  yards  from  wall  to  wall,  and  a  steep 
zigzag  path  leads  up  to  the  deep  gateway  of  the 
old  Afghan  stronghold.  From  that  aery  there  is  a 
bird's-eye  view  down  the  narrow  defile.  The  history 
of  this  Gibraltar  is  an  unbroken  record  of  attack, 
siege,  defense,  and  slaughter— last  captured,  recap- 
tured, and  burned  in  1897.  Beyond  Ali  Masjid 
we  might  not  go,  and  we  could  only  look  up  the 
narrow  rock  corridor,  soon  closed  to  view  by  a  jut- 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  293 

ting  point,  and  imagine  the  Buddhist  stupas  and 
inscriptions  we  might  not  see— Samarkand  four 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  away  in  air  line,  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  by  caravan  road. 

By  noon,  a  far  tinkling  told  that  the  camels  were 
coming,  and  the  caravans  bound  down  from  the  for- 
tified serai  at  Lundi  Khana,  where  they  had  rested 
the  night,  reached  Ali  Masjid's  gorge.  The  shaggy, 
swaying  animals,  with  their  shaggy  keepers,  made 
fitting  pictures  in  that  wild  glen.  Traces  of  vivid 
Bokhara  waistcoats  illuminated  a  few  dingy  figures, 
but  for  real,  theatrical  effect  the  troupe  needed 
fresh  costuming.  Some  of  the  caravan-men  stood 
stock-still,  rooted,  transfixed,  and  stared  at  us ;  others 
feigned  indifference;  and  others  vented  Pushtu 
curses. 

Then  tum-tums  passed  us,  speeding  on  from  Pesha- 
war toward  Kabul,  and  a  two-horse  trap,  very 
nearly  a  buckboard,  that  was  filled  with  prosperous 
Kabul  merchants,  ranks  above  common  povindahs, 
all  shapeless  fur  bundles  topped  with  preposterous 
turbans.  Gaily  domed  ekkas,  like  idols'  cars,  and 
filled  with  squatting  figures,  sped  by;  other  ekkas, 
with  curtains  discreetly  screening  the  traveling 
females,  and  drawn  by  ponies  wearing  blue  bead 
necklaces,  went  on  toward  Kabul ;  and  then  came  the 
tum-tum  of  a  mission  worker  from  Peshawar,  who 
had  essayed  the  task  of  reaching  the  Pathan  heart, 
of  subduing  the  wild  Afridi  villagers  with  Christian 
teaching.  Some  heroic-looking  old  men  on  spirited 
Kabul  horses  pranced  by;  a  mounted  Khyberi  A\dth 
pennoned  lance  made  a  picture  as  he  cantered  up ; 

16 


294  WINTER  INDIA 

and  all  the  while  the  shaggy  men  afoot  and  the 
strings  of  camels  went  noiselessly  on,  their  rocking, 
wavering,  swaying  motion,  the  slow,  deliberate,  me- 
thodical lifting  and  placing  of  the  soft  feet,  exer- 
cising a  sort  of  hypnotic  charm. 

"Why  do  these  Kabul-ly  men  have  such  white 
faces  and  blue  eyes  like  Englishmen?"  we  asked 
our  servant,  who  quailed  when  any  of  them  glared 
curiously  at  him. 

"Oh,  it  is  very  cold  at  Kabul,  and  they  eat  so 
much  white  grapes  and  fruit.  That  makes  them 
white  men.  Kabul-ly  grapes  are  very  dear,  and 
poor  Hindu  cannot  buy." 

Then,  nearly  all  the  long  way  back  to  Jamrud,  we 
were  meeting  and  overtaking  strings  of  camels — 
camels  to  right  of  us  and  camels  to  left  of  us, 
camels  ahead  and  camels  behind,  that  thrust  their 
unpleasant  heads,  with  their  foaming  lips  and  yel- 
low teeth,  altogether  too  near.  Once  when  the  sowar 
fended  away  a  too-friendly  camel  with  his  rifle- 
barrel,  there  came  such  screams,  groans,  and  shrieks 
from  the  insulted  beast  that  we  felt  that  all  the 
vaunted  dangers  of  the  pass  were  understated,  and 
that  the  camels  were  as  dangerous  as  the  Khyberis. 
The  diamond  hitch  is  not  known  in  Afghanistan 
evidently,  for  the  loads  were  balanced  rather  than 
girded  on,  and  cinching  seems  never  to  have  been 
applied  to  the  camel's  waist-line.  The  drivers  were 
continually  rearranging  loads  that  had  tilted  over 
or  worked  loose,  and  bending  their  triple-jointed 
legs,  gaunt  beasts  with  elongated  necks  sat  down 
and   protested   to   the    echoing   canon    walls   while 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  295 

their  burdens  were  clumsily  fastened  again.  Kodak 
film  was  reeled  away  regardless  of  the  distance 
from  the  cantonment  photographer's  dark-room, 
and  still  the  caravans  came  on,  bringing  silk,  carpets, 
wool,  furs,  fruits,  and  sweetmeats  from  Kabul ;  while 
up  from  Peshawar  came  blocks  of  rock-salt,  chests 
of  Indian  tea,  and  all  of  Birmingham's  wares,  to- 
gether with  an  unending  movement  of  British  piece- 
goods,  into  the  heart  of  the  great  continent. 

As  we  came  out  to  wide  reaches  between  the  de- 
creasing hills,  the  road  was  all  our  own  again,  save 
for  the  lounging  sentries  here  and  there  among  the 
rocks.  Soon  we  emerged  on  the  plain,  the  hills 
closed  behind  us,  and  there  was  spread  the  view  that 
has  gladdened  the  heart  and  thrilled  the  pulses  of 
every  marauding  conqueror  from  the  north ;  but  for 
us  the  land  of  romance  and  mystery  lay  behind  us, 
among,  beyond  the  frontiers.  The  real  spice,  the 
greatest  element  of  danger,  was  gone,  too,  when  the 
sowar  swung  himself  down  from  the  tum-tum  and 
strolled  off  to  his  barracks  with  a  scornful  smile  of 
good-by— a  smile  that  grimly  seemed  to  promise  a 
less  conventional  meeting. 

Once  beyond  Jamrud  walls,  our  Hindu  bearer 
recovered  heart  and  spirits,  and  chattered  and  ges- 
ticulated almost  joyfully  with  the  sais  all  the  dusty 
ride  back  to  Peshawar,  as  one  who  had  faced  certain 
death  and  escaped  it. 

There  was  the  same  scramble  by  the  wild  mob 
on  the  Khairabad  platform  when  we  again  sighted  the 
great  Attock  fort  and  bridge  across  the  Indus. 
There  was  uproar  among  as  many  mad  Pathans  as 


296  WINTER   INDIA 

ever,  and  it  seemed  as  though  there  must  always  be 
more  Afghans  than  room  for  them  on  the  railway. 
The  Bengali  station-master,  who  greeted  us  as  old 
acquaintances  when  we  returned  safely  to  his  the- 
atrical platform  and  its  wild  war  drama,  stood  by 
our  window  and  talked,  and  heeded  this  riot  and  the 
mingled  roars  in  Pushtu  no  more  than  the  ripples 
of  the  Indus  on  the  stones  below.  Six-foot  ruffians, 
with  rage  and  hate  distorting  their  countenances, 
ramped  the  platform  and  flung  themselves  in  heaps 
before  each  third-class  door,  each  man  with  enough 
extra  cloth  flapping,  bagging,  flying  loose  and  trail- 
ing after  him  to  clothe  two  other  men  in  European 
patterns.  Each  bawled  and  beat  the  air  like  a  mad- 
man, screaming  rage  and  defiance  at  the  earlier  oc- 
cupants of  compartments  where  not  another  foot 
nor  elbow  could  be  insinuated  by  the  most  deter- 
mined of  these  hairy  giants.  And  still  the  Bengali 
talked  gently  on,  airily  admitting  that  the  Afghans 
were  a  very  bad  lot.  "But  Abdurrahman  can  man- 
age them  as  no  one  else  can.  They  all  fear  him. 
When  he  dies  we  will  have  the  war," 

''Tell  me  about  the  Khyber  Pass.  How  did  you 
get  permission  to  go  there?  What  did  you  go  for?" 
bluntly  asked  a  German  cavalry  officer  when  we 
had  returned  to  table  d'hote  circles  at  Lahore.  He 
cross-examined  me  as  to  every  civil,  social,  military, 
and  geographic  fact  that  might  have  come  under 
my  observation.  "You  wanted  to  see  the  live  Pa- 
thans  because  Herr  Kipling  has  written?  and  to 
see  where  Alexander  came  through  ? ' ' 

We  charged  the  uhlan  with  wishing  to  see  where 


THROUGH  KHYBER  PASS  WITH  THE  CARAVANS  297 

the  next  world  contest  will  be  fought,  where  the 
Russians  are  coming  through, 

* '  Umh-umh !  Yes !  I  may  want  to  see  where  we 
might  want  to  come  through  ourselves." 

"You!     The  Germans  in  India?" 

"Certainly.     Why  not?" 

"But  will  you  come  as  the  ally  of  the  Sultan  or 
the  Czar?" 

"Ally?"  he  repeated,  in  apparent  amazement. 


CHAPTER   XXI 


AMPJTSAR 


IHERE  was  a  combination  hotel  and 
dak  bangla  under  one  roof  at  Am- 
ritsar  that  was  as  amusing  as  anything 
in  comic  opera.  We  arrived  at  the 
dak  bangla  late  at  night,  and  moved 
to  the  hotel  in  the  morning,  by  merely  crossing  the 
hall.  Instead  of  being  served  in  our  own  cold,  white 
vault  of  a  bedchamber  in  the  bangla,  we  dined  in 
the  lofty,  drafty  banquet-hall  of  the  hotel  quite 
as  comfortably  as  if  in  the  train-shed  of  a  railway 
station  on  a  winter  night.  All  the  doors  of  the 
place  were  besieged  by  insistent  touts  who  sang  the 
same  song,  ''Please  come  my  shop.  Please  buy  my 
shop,"  thrust  greasy  cards  at  us,  clung  to  the  car- 
riage-steps, and  outdid  their  tribesmen  elsewhere. 

Amritsar,  as  the  holy  city  of  the  Sikhs,  has  an  im- 
portance and  a  character  distinct  from  all  other 
places.  It  is  as  large  a  city  as  Delhi,  and  for  ages 
has  been  a  great  trade-center,  lying  on  the  main 
caravan  routes  from  Central  Asia  and  Kashmir. 
The  streets  show  a  mixture  of  races,  and  for  color 
and  picturesqueness  the  bazaars  equal  those  of  La- 
hore.    Nearly  every  man  wore  a  chudda  of  either 

298 


AMRITSAR  299 

vivid  red,  green,  or  orange,  and  if  we  had  remained 
another  day  I  should  have  succumbed  to  the  pre- 
vailing mode,  assumed  a  bright-red  shawl,  and  with 
it  the  theatrical  pose  and  stride,  the  flap  and  fling 
of  loose  ends  of  drapery.  The  Sikhs,  "the  Swiss  of 
Asia,"  were  old  friends,  whom  I  had  known  before 
I  knew  the  Pan  jab— the  splendid  statuesque,  red- 
turbaned  policemen  of  Shanghai  and  Hong  Kong, 
"the  red-top  men"  of  such  terror  to  Chinese  male- 
factors. Originally  Hindus,  their  Luther  protested 
against  caste  and  idolatry  and  denounced  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  Brahmans;  and,  just  before  Colum- 
bus's voyage  to  America,  he  established  his  dissent- 
ing sect  near  Lahore,  Akbar  showed  tolerance  and 
granted  them  the  sacred  pool  at  Amritsar,  but  his 
successors  persecuted  them,  tortured  their  leaders, 
and  so  aroused  their  national  and  military  spirit 
that  after  many  battles  they  established  their  in- 
dependence in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Their  last  great  leader  was  Runjeet  Singh,  after 
whose  death  in  1839  they  embroiled  themselves  with 
the  English,  were  defeated  at  Gujerat  in  1849, 
and  the  Koh-i-nur  went  with  the  Panjab  to  the 
victors,  and  now  the  pensioned  descendants  of  their 
ruler  live  as  country  gentlemen  and  champion 
cricket-players  in  England,  marrying  with  the 
English  nobility.  The  Sikhs'  loyalty  during  the 
Mutiny  gave  them  a  prestige  still  preserved,  and 
these  stalwart  and  interesting  people  are  claimed 
by  the  Magyars  as  long-lost  Aryan  kinfolk,  many 
common  words  and  the  common  fashion  of  beards 
first   suggesting   the   relationship.     While   the   old 


300  WINTER   INDIA 

men  of  the  Sikhs  bewail  that  their  people  are  back- 
sliding and  drifting  into  Hinduism,  a  stranger  sees 
that  they  are  as  anti-Hindu  as  anti-Mohammedan; 
that  they  pray  to  the  east,  refuse  tobacco,  in- 
dulge in  spirits,  eat  pork,  and  button  their  coats 
to  the  right — if  only  because  their  opponents  do 
otherwise.  While  they  venerate  the  cow,  they  loathe 
the  saffron  color  of  the  Hindu  fakir  and  love  the 
blue  the  Hindu  hates.  The  Sikh  never  shaves  or 
trims  his  hair  or  beard,  parting  the  latter  and  twist- 
ing and  tucking  it  behind  his  ears  and  under  the  tur- 
ban. He  always  wears  a  sword,  if  only  the  minia- 
ture tulwar  in  his  turban,  and  he  terrorizes  the 
timid  babu,  the  limp  Bengali,  and  the  cowardly 
Kashmiri  as  he  does  the  Chinese,  and  in  general  is 
the  first  man  one  meets  in  India. 

The  heart  of  the  Sikh  city  and  the  soul  of  its  peo- 
ple is  the  Golden  Temple  in  the  center  of  the  sacred 
tank,  the  Pool  of  Immortality,  and  for  beauty  and 
impressiveness  this  Amritsar  shrine  is  second  only 
to  the  Taj  Mahal.  Marble  terraces  and  balustrades 
surround  the  tank,  and  a  marble  causeway  leads 
across  the  water  to  a  graceful  marble  temple  whose 
gilded  walls,  roof,  dome,  and  cupolas,  with  vivid 
touches  of  red  curtains,  are  reflected  in  the  still  pool. 
One  gets  the  first  view  from  a  high  terrace  by  the 
modern  Gothic  clock-tower,  where  the  Sikh  guards 
halt  one  until  he  has  removed  his  shoes.  A  bearded 
giant  exchanged  our  shoes  for  huge  felt  slippers 
that  were  damp  and  even  wet,  and  led  us  around  the 
white  terrace.  The  palaces  and  gardens  of  Sikh 
nobles  surround  the  tank,  and  the  path  is  bordered 


AMRITSAR  303 

with  venders  of  fruit,  flowers,  and  turban  orna- 
ments. Processions  of  brilliantly  clad  people  passed 
under  the  towered  gate  of  the  causeway  and  out  over 
the  path  on  the  water;  and,  doubled  in  reflections, 
it  all  seemed  too  picturesque,  too  theatrical  to  be 
real.  Only  the  north  door  of  the  temple  is  open  to 
Europeans,  but  the  bearded  priests  sitting  in  a  gold 
and  painted  hall  before  a  magnificently  bound 
Granth,  or  sacred  scriptures,  over  which  the  atten- 
dants waved  brushes,  received  us  kindly.  Pigeons 
flew  in  and  out  the  arched  openings  with  their  mas- 
sive silver  doors;  the  musicians  pounded  and  blew; 
the  priests  sat  chanting  before  the  jeweled  Granth, 
which  is  the  object  of  adoration  to  the  sect,  and  after 
we  had  made  our  offerings,  threw  jasmine  wreaths 
over  our  shoulders  and  gave  us  fragrant  oranges. 
The  Sikh  visitors  worshipfully  knelt,  offering 
money,  cowries,  and  flowers  before  the  book,  and, 
garlanded  in  return,  were  conducted  with  us  to  the 
upper  chamber  of  the  temple  to  see  even  richer  wall 
decorations  of  mirrors  and  gilded  fretwork.  The 
place  is  so  precious  that  it  is  swept  and  dusted  only 
with  peacock  feathers.  The  silver  doors  of  the  tem- 
ple stand  open  day  and  night,  and  the  chanted  ser- 
vices are  continual,  and  on  moonlight  nights  in  sum- 
mer this  fairy  floating  temple  must  seem  a  dream. 
Only  the  chill  of  those  wet  felt  slippers  on  that  cold 
winter  morning  could  have  hurried  us  away  from 
the  enchanting  place;  but,  sneezing  and  shivering 
violently,  we  fled,  and  although  we  spent  two  more 
days  in  Amritsar,  we  were  content  to  view  the  tem- 
ple from  the  terrace. 


304  WINTER  INDIA 

Gardens,  forts,  towers,  other  temples  and  palaces 
dwindled  in  interest  by  comparison  with  the  bazaars 
and  street  crowds  of  Amritsar,  and  hours  went  by 
rapidly  as  we  followed  the  narrow  streets  of  this 
truly  Persian  and  Central  Asian  city.  In  the  cara- 
vansary by  the  city  walls  we  saw  such  delightfully 
tattered  and  patched  and  lusty  beggars  from  Yar- 
kand  and  Bokhara  as  no  fancy  could  picture.  They 
are  last  in  the  train  of  pilgrims  that  come  down 
from  the  north  each  winter,  taking  train  at  Amritsar 
and  excursion  steamer  at  Bombay  for  the  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca.  These  plump,  red-cheeked,  Tatar-faced  beg- 
gars beat  time  on  a  triangle  and  sang  an  appealing 
verse  or  two,  accompanying  it  with  dramatic  and 
graceful  gestures;  and  they  wished  us  long  life, 
health,  and  wealth  in  return  for  our  infidel  annas. 
Other  Yarkand  men  came  out  from  the  arches  of 
the  quadrangle,  some  blue-eyed  and  with  faces  ab- 
surdly Teutonic,  their  originally  white  skins  tinged 
with  sunburn  and  dirt  until,  like  the  Sikhs,  they 
were  a  dark  leather  or  ginger  color.  Some  were 
horse-dealers,  others  had  brought  wool,  silk,  jade, 
turquoises,  and  agate  for  sale.  All  wore  long,  fur- 
bordered,  wool  or  wadded  coats,  with  real  sleeves 
and  seams  in  them,  instead  of  the  loose  ends  of  cot- 
ton and  pashmina  cloth  of  the  people  of  the  Indian 
plains.  One  man  in  an  old  Russian  military  coat 
and  top-boots  looked  the  veritable  stage  secret- 
service  man,  and  then  we  remembered  that  in 
this  caravansary  Kim  slept  and  listened.  But  how 
we  reveled  in  the  streets  and  bazaars  beyond ! 
The  quarter  of  the  shoemakers,  where  gaudy  Mo- 


AMRITSAR  305 

hammedan  slippers  dandled  in  gorgeous  strings 
and  bunches,  and  leather-workers  bent  over  rain- 
bow tasks !  The  wool-shops,  where  Bokhara  cam- 
els' wool  and  Kashmir  and  Rampur  pashmina  cloths 
overflowed  from  open  sacks  and  bales!  And  yarn- 
shops,  hung  over  with  skeins  of  every  color!  Dye- 
shops,  where  turban  lengths  hung  dripping  with 
every  brilliant  fluid!  Copper  and  brass  and  dam- 
ascened metal  shops,  and  shops  for  the  sale  of 
coarse  carpets  and  dhurries,  of  skin  bottles  and 
earthen  bowls,— all  were  fascinating.  The  shops,  how- 
ever, were  the  dens  of  shawl-shops,  where  pale,  fine- 
featured  Kashmiris  sat  embroidering  shawl  borders 
with  silks  and  gold  thread.  The  little  Kashmiri 
boys,  with  their  great  eyes  and  long  lashes,  were 
charming  creatures,  fine  products  of  an  old  race  and 
an  old  civilization,  purest  Aryans  of  all  these  people ; 
but  the  bearded  Sikhs  despise  the  Kashmiri  only  a 
little  less  than  they  despise  the  Bengali.  The  gen- 
tle, esthetic  Kashmiri  is  not  a  fighting  man,  and 
there  are  thousands  of  pure  and  mixed  Kashmir 
weavers  and  embroiderers  long  resident  in  Amritsar 
who  still  quail  before  the  giant  Sikhs. 

We  found  the  jewelers'  row,  where  women  who 
were  themselves  walking  jewel-shops  sat  bargaining ; 
and  we  found  the  gem-cutters'  dens,  where  jade 
blocks  from  Yarkand  and  farther  Turkestan  were 
sawed,  cut,  and  polished.  Jewel-boxes,  knife-han- 
dles, knife-blades,  ear-rings,  bracelets,  slabs,  and  me- 
dallions for  Delhi  jewelers  to  inlay  with  precious 
stones,  were  all  being  evolved  from  the  rough  lumps 
of  green  stone  by  means  of  the  primitive  bow-string 


306  WINTER   INDIA 

drill  and  emery-wheel  driven  by  the  foot.  There 
was  a  sociable  jade  merchant  of  silky,  persuasive 
manners,  who  lost  much  time  trying  to  convince 
me  that  gray  was  green  and  that  any  soft  stone,  if 
it  were  even  grayish-green,  was  jade,  and  that  brown 
streaks  and  white  clouds  were  desirable  variations 
in  the  monotonous  monochrome  surface.  After  this 
prelude,  he  produced  better  pieces  of  this  most  fas- 
cinating and  oldest  lucky  stone  in  the  world.  Bul- 
lock-carts crowded  us  to  the  wall  and  camel-trains 
brushed  contemptuously  through  the  narrow  bazaars. 
One  camel,  loaded  with  baskets,  scraped  a  destroy- 
ing path  through  the  tortuous  lane,  tearing  down 
flimsy  awnings  and  curtains,  sweeping  signs  and 
trade  samples  along  and  tramping  them  under  his 
spongy  feet,  while  the  shrieks  of  the  despoiled  trades- 
men filled  the  air. 

All  the  way  touts  dogged  our  steps.  "Please  come 
my  shop.  Please  buy  my  shop,"  rang  in  my  ear 
whenever  I  stopped  to  look  or  to  point  the  camera. 
They  followed  us,  pleading,  if  we  walked ;  they  leaped 
off  and  on  the  carriage-step  if  we  drove ;  and  ' '  Jao ! ' ' 
had  no  significance  to  them  save  when  emphasized 
by  the  bearer's  stick.  One  persistent  nagger  drove 
us  almost  to  frenzy  with  his  lamentations  and  up- 
Hraidings  whenever  we  stopped  at  a  shop-front.  We 
bade  him  "  Jao !"  and  to  stay  "jao,"  but  he  was  om- 
nipresent, and  to  get  rid  of  him  we  went  to  his  shop. 
He  had  nothing  but  weather-worn  rubbish;  and 
while  he  ran  to  borrow  stock  from  a  neighbor  we 
made  our  escape. 

At   the   large   carpet-factory  ninety-seven   looms 


AMRITSAR  309 

were  strung  with  cotton  warp,  and  little  Kashmiri 
boys,  sitting  elbow  to  elbow  before  them,  tied  in  the 
wool  threads,  cut  them  with  miniature  scythes,  and 
pressed  down  the  stitches  with  wooden  combs.  A 
spectacled  old  Kashmiri,  seated  behind  each  curtain 
of  warp-threads,  read  off  the  directions  for  the  pat- 
tern from  pages  of  Kashmir  cipher,  all  understand- 
ing and  following  this  ancient,  conventional  cipher 
by  inherited  association  more  easily  than  any  of  the 
clear,  mechanical  directions  devised  and  used  by  the 
managers  of  jail  carpet-works.  Four  small  boys, 
with  one  old  man  to  read  the  pattern  to  them,  will 
make  a  fine,  close,  velvet-pile  carpet,  measuring 
eleven  by  thirteen  feet,  in  two  months  and  a  half, —  a 
carpet  worth  twenty-five  dollars  gold  at  Amritsar. 
The  design  is  chosen,  the  materials  allotted,  and  the 
contract  let  to  the  reader,  who  pays  each  boy  three 
or  four  rupees  a  month.  Conventional  old  Turk- 
ish and  Persian  designs  are  followed.  They  are  first 
drawn  in  colors,  traced  on  sealed  paper,  graded  to 
the  number  of  warp-threads,  and  the  pattern  writ- 
ten in  Kashmir  cipher.  The  small  boys  work  me- 
chanically, tying  on  two,  four,  or  twenty  stitches, 
as  the  reader  calls  to  them,  paying  little  heed  to 
what  is  growing  under  their  fingers,  whether  scroll, 
leaf,  or  stripe.  "Two  pink,  three  green,  one  red," 
chant  the  boys  in  monotones  after  the  reader.  The 
reader  watches  the  pattern  grow,  and,  detecting  a 
false  stitch,  raps  the  offender  with  the  stick  he 
holds  for  the  purpose.  The  carpets  are  valued  both 
for  the  fineness  of  the  stitches  and  the  quality  of 
the  wool,  the  ordinary  "fine  old  Persian,  or  Tabriz, 


310  WINTER  INDIA 

rug"  of  Western  auction-rooms  costing  eleven  and 
twelve  rupees  a  square  yard  in  Amritsar;  while  a 
copy  of  a  precious  old  wine-red  Bokhara  rug  they 
were  then  weaving  of  fine  pashmina  or  shawl  wool 
was  worth  fifty  rupees  a  square  yard. 

Each  loom  was  a  genre  picture  and  a  color  study, 
with  the  spectacled  Kashmiri  in  sober  turban  and 
jacket  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  the  row  of  long- 
lashed  boys  in  brilliant  garments,  elbowing  and 
shoving  one  another  and  tittering  together,  quite  as 
all  children  behave  in  the  presence  of  school  visitors. 
No  finished  carpets  could  be  seen  or  bought,  since 
the  looms  were  working  overtime,  a  year  behind  their 
orders.  New  York  buyers  order  largely  each  year, 
and  large  consignments  go  to  London  and  Paris. 
There  were  shawls  for  sale,  bales  and  bales  of  them, 
and  stitched  in  silk  threads  at  the  end  of  each 
chudda  was  the  number  of  warp -threads,  by  which 
their  fineness  and  value  are  determined.  They  are 
kept  in  press  between  boards,  and  when  one  bought 
the  silky  fabric  it  was  sewed  in  Kashmir  wax-cloth 
and  sealed  in  a  clumsy  tin  box. 

So  very  enchanting  did  we  find  these  bazaars  that 
we  lingered  another  day  and  yet  another,  to  feast 
on  their  picturesque  setting  and  incidents  each 
warm,  Indian-summery  afternoon.  Then  we  has- 
tened to  the  guard-house  terrace  overlooking  the 
tank  and  the  Golden  Temple,  and  watched  that  build- 
ing of  beauty,  whose  reflection  seemed  to  float  upon 
the  splendid  sunset  sky. 

We  hurried  back  to  the  bazaars  again,  to  see  the 
narrow,  irregular  lanes  illuminated  with  every  kind 


AMRITSAK  311 

of  poor,  crude,  clumsy  lamp  and  lantern,  tallow 
dip,  rush-light,  saucer  of  oil,  and  floating  wick, 
fagot,  and  torch.  Shadows  hid  the  dirt  and  in- 
congruities; each  unique  thing  had  its  right  value; 
and  we  haggled  over  blue-embroidered  Yarkand 
felt  rugs,  over  striped  Ludhiana  lungis  or  gold-shot 
cotton  turban-cloths,  over  jade  and  blue  ferozees 
and  the  shadowy  Bokhara  silks,  far  into  the  frosty 
darkness  up  to  the  late  dinner-hour. 


CHAPTER  XXir 


SIMLA 


IMRITSAR'S  railway  platform— the 
same  where  Kim  was  put  off  the  train 
for  want  of  a  ticket  to  Ambala,  and  by 
his  wits  was  soon  on  board  again— was 
most  picturesque  the  noonday  we 
started  for  Simla.  A  man  in  a  blue  coat  with  yel- 
low cuffs  and  a  red  shawl  thrown  over  his  shoulder 
was  only  first  figure  in  the  crowd  of  red,  blue, 
orange,  and  green-shawled  creatures,  in  turbans  of 
red,  pink,  orange,  lemon,  and  salmon,  in  blue  and 
gray  Ludhiana  lungis  with  gold-striped  ends.  An 
ash-smeared  fakir  crouched  gibbering  by  the  wall 
near  the  tank  labeled,  "Water  for  Mohammedans," 
and  a  high-caste  Brahman  protected  water  sacred  to 
his  co-religionists'  use.  A  woman  whose  jewelry 
was  but  half  concealed  by  a  thin  sari  held  an  um- 
brella down  over  her  face  as  she  squatted  on  the 
concrete,  and  her  owner  threw  a  sheet  over  the  um- 
brella and  fiercely  guarded  the  beehive  tent.  From 
this  retreat,  the  woman  peered  forth,  clashed  and 
jangled  her  jewels  to  attract  our  attention,  and  made 
eager  signs  for  us  to  come  near  that  she  might  inspect 
us. 

312 


SIMLA  313 

All  afternoon  we  rode  straight  toward  a  long,  blue 
horizon-line  that  grew,  until  at  sunset,  at  Ambala, 
we  had  the  great  wall  of  the  Himalayas  plainly  be- 
fore us.  We  changed  trains,  and  jolted  over  the 
thirty-five  miles  to  Kalka  in  complete  darkness.  At 
nine  o'clock  we  stumbled  through  a  dark,  deserted 
village  to  the  so-called  hotel,  which  was  a  little  bet- 
ter than  a  stable  only  in  that  it  had  not  yet  been 
used  for  horses.  We  spread  our  bedding  in  chill, 
whitewashed,  stone-floored  rooms  opening  upon  a 
stone  porch;  and  once  more  in  darkness  followed  a 
lantern  through  the  streets  to  the  post-office.  There 
we  agreed  to  pay  the  government  of  India,  or  the 
postmaster-general,  seventy-five  rupees  for  a  "tonga 
phaeton,"  i.  e.,  a  two-pony  victoria,  with  sixteen  re- 
lays of  ponies,  for  the  fifty-seven-mile  drive  up  to 
Simla  and  return. 

Wholly  by  our  own  energies  we  got  the  establish- 
ment astir  the  next  morning  at  half -past  six  o'clock. 
The  worst  coffee  in  India  was  brought,  with  the 
usual  smoky  toast  and  repulsive  butter-plate— this 
at  perhaps  the  only  hotel  in  India  ever  patronized 
by  the  official  class,  and  which  the  smart,  the  luxury- 
loving  and  disdainful,  must  endure  twice  a  year  if 
they  go  to  Simla.  Western  civilization  in  India, 
taking  the  hotel  as  its  index,  is  at  lowest  ebb  at 
Kalka. 

Our  tonga,  or  "fitton"  in  native  colloquial,  ar- 
rived at  our  door  before  sunrise,  drawn  by  two  bul- 
locks. We  mounted  and  were  slowly  dragged  to  the 
post-office,  from  which  exact  point  the  government 
had  agreed  to  transport  us.     The  two  ponies  were 

17 


314  WINTER   INDIA 

then  affixed,— "as  per  contract,"  said  the  babu,— 
made  fast  by  traces  running  to  a  tonga,  or  steel  bar 
fastened  yoke-wise  to  both  girths.  Away  they  went 
by  leaps  and  bounds,  and  at  a  gallop,  up  hill,  around 
corners,  and  along  a  country  road  through  the  foot- 
hills. Every  three  or  four  miles,  the  driver  winded 
his  horn,  the  ponies  redoubled  their  efforts  to  run 
away,  and  we  bounded  into  a  tonga  station,  where 
the  relay  ponies  stood  waiting  in  harness.  The  steel 
bar  was  loosened  and  pinned  to  the  girths  of  the 
new  ponies,  the  traces  and  reins  made  fast,  and  we 
shot  forth  at  the  fixed  gait  of  eight  miles  an  hour. 

It  was  a  clear,  cloudless  day,  with  hoar-frost  over 
the  grass  of  the  bare  hillsides  and  on  the  rice-fields 
that  in  curving  terraces  filled  every  valley  and  ra- 
vine, rippling  away  in  lines  that  seemed  designed 
for  ornament  only.  There  were  plantations  of  trees, 
but  no  forests — none  of  the  jungles  that  one  expects 
at  the  foot  of  such  a  mountain-range.  In  the  dis- 
tance clumps  of  intensely  green  Pimis  longi folia 
waved  their  nine-  and  ten-inch-long  needles  as  softly 
as  bamboos.  We  mounted  long  inclines,  whence  we 
had  a  magnificent  view  of  the  hills  and  plains  be- 
low, or  looked  up  and  across  to  the  loops  of  the  road 
above  us.  Sometimes  we  could  watch  the  next  relay 
station  as  we  drove  toward  it,  and  with  the  glasses 
note  the  preparations  for  our  arrival.  Bullock-trains 
under  guard  of  sepoys,  low  mail-tongas  bringing 
convalescents  down  from  the  sanatoriums,  and  a 
few  camel-trains  passed  by.  The  bearded  Sikhs,  the 
turbaned  Pathans,  and  the  handsome  Kashmiris  of 
Lahore  and  Amritsar  streets  had  vanished,  and  in 


SIMLA  317 

their  places  appeared  a  nondescript  people  in  sober 
attire, — sturdy  hill-men  whose  clothes  and  cheek- 
bones had  the  same  Chinese  suggestion  as  those 
of  the  hill-folk  around  Darjiling,  At  ten- thirty  we 
shook  off  our  razais  and  rugs  and  limped  into  the  dak 
bangla  at  Solon,  with  fierce  mountain  appetites 
added  to  what  naturally  succeeded  the  imitation  of 
a  breakfast  at  Kalka.  A  courteous  old  khansamah, 
with  a  velvet  manner  and  perfect  decorum,  ush- 
ered us  to  a  dining-room  where  the  chill  of  Hima- 
layan summits  lingered,  and  we  soon  had  the  table 
brought  out  to  the  sunny  veranda.  Twenty-seven 
miles  of  travel,  and  a  lift  of  a  few  thousand  feet 
in  air,  had  raised  the  art  of  cookery  far  above  its 
level  at  Kalka,  and  we  breakfasted  with  enthusiasm. 
While  two  plunging  animals  refused  either  to  be 
led  or  backed  up  to  the  ''fitton,"  the  babu  informed 
us  that  this  was  the  best  post-road  in  India;  that 
it  had  the  best  carriages  and  best  ponies;  that  the 
government  pays  one  and  two  hundred  rupees  for 
the  best  Peshawar  and  Agra  horses,  and  sells  them 
cheap  at  the  end  of  six  or  eight  months,  since  only 
the  best  stock  will  do  for  or  can  stand  the  Simla 
travel.  Across  the  valley  we  could  see  twenty  horses 
sunning  themselves  before  the  next  station,  ready 
for  the  day's  relays,  and  our  early  start  gave  us  the 
choice  of  the  successive  stables.  From  Solon  the 
road  led  steadily  up  over  bare  brown  hills,  marked 
by  the  path  of  landslides  or  the  green  of  afforestation 
efforts,  set  with  candlestick  cacti  and  striped  with 
an  occasional  patch  of  snow.  All  the  boulders  were 
painted  over  with  and  the  pine  groves  stuck  full  of 


318  WINTER  INDIA 

advertisements  of  a  certain  "Green  Seal  Whisky," 
the  Himalayas  as  gaudy  as  a  London  omnibus  or 
railway  station.  At  last  a  turn  revealed  to  us  the 
snowy  range,  far  away  up  against  the  sky,  and  then 
Simla's  straggling  crescent  of  houses  was  seen  across 
a  great  chasm  or  valley.  In  seven  hours  and  a  half 
—just  the  time  taken  for  the  trifling  trains  to  climb 
to  Darjiling — we  reached  the  Simla  tonga  station, 
seven  thousand  and  eighty-five  feet  above  the  sea. 

It  was  the  place  of  the  ' '  Phantom  Rickshaw, ' '  but 
what  a  material  vehicle  appeared  to  us !  No  wonder 
it  is  spelled  with  an  unnecessary  "c"  and  a  bar- 
barous "w,"  or  with  any  alphabetical  lumber  that 
can  be  dragged  in  by  Anglo-Indians.  Nothing  could 
be  more  ludicrous  in  a  farce  or  burlesque  in  a  Jap- 
anese theater  than  such  a  vehicle.  Four  thousand 
miles  by  road  and  centuries  of  intelligent  devel- 
opment lie  between  the  Tokio  jinrikisha  and  the 
Simla  "jinny  rickshaw" — the  one  an  airy  seat 
on  flying  wheels;  the  other  a  solid,  clumsy  cart,  a 
rattling,  rumbling  affair  of  cast-iron  and  thick 
planks,  drawn  by  four  shuffling  coolies,  who  walk 
leaning  against  the  long  tongue  or  the  back  board 
of  the  undersized  juggernaut. 

A  late  tiffin  awaited  us  in  the  ramshackle  wooden 
hotel,  which,  patched,  shabby,  and  unsightly,  was 
in  the  hands  of  workmen  getting  ready  for  the  open- 
ing of  the  season  in  March,  The  landlord  was  volu- 
ble and  kind,  for  tourists  never  come  to  the  hill- 
tops in  winter,  and  he  gave  us  the  best  of  the  shabby 
old  rooms— dark,  sunless  holes,  with  cheap  furniture 
and  fittings  so  long  past  their  day  that  they  might 


SIMLA  319 

well  be  put  in  a  mnseum  of  last-century  crudities. 
Yet  here  fashion  and  arrogance  abide  from  March 
to  November,  and  the  gayest  social  life  goes  on, 
despite  the  frightful  thunder-  and  hail-storms — rains 
that  are  nearly  water-spouts  and  cloud-bursts,  and 
that  continue  for  three  months. 

It  was  like  turning  the  pages  of  ''Plain  Tales  from 
the  Hills"  even  to  read  the  street  signs  as  we  lum- 
bered about  that  crescent  ridge  of  the  summer  capi- 
tal. Jakko,  the  Mall,  the  Ladies'  Mile,  Elysium  Hill, 
and  all  the  rest  were  there,  and  we  traveled  the  same 
road  that  Mr.  Isaacs  and  the  fair  English  girl  rode 
together.  There  were  the  shops  of  jewelers, — in  one 
of  which  Kim  and  the  other  boy  counted  the  loose 
stones  in  trays, — shops  of  silk,  silver,  and  curio  mer- 
chants, of  milliners  and  pastry-cooks,  all  boarded 
fast  for  the  winter,  and  behind  them  the  ramshackle 
buildings  of  the  native  bazaar  dropped  along  the 
hillsides  in  crazy  terraces.  There  were  English 
villas  and  cottages,  and  nothing  Oriental  or  truly 
Indian  in  the  aspect  of  the  place,  and  we  had  a 
stranger's  feeling.  Our  slow-moving  coolies  were 
barefooted  and  barelegged,  and  when  they  stepped 
aside  from  the  beaten  track  of  slush  to  let  bullock- 
trains  pass,  they  often  stood  more  than  ankle  deep 
in  snow.  As  the  setting  sun  played  a  fire-pageant 
over  the  line  of  snow-peaks,  the  chill  mountain 
air  penetrated  our  wraps  and  rugs,  but  the  red- 
cheeked  English  girls  in  cotton  shirt-waists  strolled 
slowly  home  with  their  tennis  rackets,  as  if  it  were 
a  day  in  June.  How  we  wished  we  might  go  with 
them;   that  they  would   ask  us  to   follow   on   and 


320  WINTER  INDIA 

have  a  cup  of  tea  and  meet  Mrs.  Hauksbee,  the  Gads- 
bys,  and  all  the  rest  we  knew  so  well !  We  wanted, 
too,  to  hear  more  about  those  long-past  seasons  when 
occult  science  and  the  new  religion  were  setting 
Simla  wild;  when  Mme.  Blavatsky,  the  suspected 
Russian  spy,  was  working  her  miracles,  and  great 
mahatmas  and  yogis  were  arriving  from  nowhere, 
with  nothing  in  their  hands,  and  letters  dropped 
from  the  ceiling  as  commonly  as  from  the  post- 
man 's  bag.  A.  P.  Sinnett,  the  editor  of  the  Pioneer, 
was  leader  in  the  occult  movement,  and  by  his 
"Esoteric  Buddhism"  and  "Karma"  theosophy 
spread  to  the  Occident.  We  had  glimpses  of  those 
days  in  "Mr.  Isaacs,"  and  Mr.  Crawford's  Ram 
Lai  is  to  be  taken  seriously.  The  whole  clumsy  fraud 
had  been  exposed  when  Kipling  came,  and  in  "The 
Sending  of  Dana  Da"  we  have  an  irreverent 
account  of  a  specimen  case.  When  all  the  clap- 
trap and  collusion,  the  mechanical  devices  and 
unblushing  frauds  had  been  exposed,  laughter  shook 
the  Himalayan  hills,  and  the  rich  natives,  who  had 
financed  the  apostles  as  furthering  a  crusade  against 
Christianity  and  mission  work,  were  left  in  tears. 
The  London  Society  for  Psychical  Research  sent 
their  keenest  investigator,  and  there  was  no  mys- 
tery left— Isis  was  completely  unveiled,  and  theoso- 
phy has  since  been  a  dead  issue  in  Simla ;  and  all  its 
miracles  were  proved  to  be  in  line  with  Dana  Da's 
sending  of  the  kittens. 

In  February  we  walked  the  terraced  promenade 
by  the  reservoir  alone,  and  had  the  sunset  view  of 
the  snowy  range  quite  to  ourselves.     Three  small 


SIMLA  321 

Anglo-Indians  lingered  by  the  cathedral  door.  We 
asked  them  the  name  of  the  large,  white  peak  that 
rose  above  the  long,  snowy  ridge.  "I  don't  know 
the  name.  The  snows— just  the  snows— is  what  we 
always  call  them,"  said  one  Wee  Willie. 

Even  the  landlord  made  a  wry  face  when  we  said 
we  had  come  to  see  Simla  as  a  tribute  to  Kipling; 
that  we  should  not  have  been  satisfied  to  leave  India 
without  visiting  this  scene  of  so  many  of  his  stories. 
We  assured  the  landlord— manager,  rather— that 
we  could  not  have  appreciated  nor  understood  In- 
dia but  for  Kipling,  nor  Kipling  but  for  India; 
that  we  now  realized  our  debt  to  Kipling  and  the 
measure  of  his  genius.  The  manager  did  not  make 
vigorous  protest,  like  all  the  other  Anglo-Indians, 
for  the  wise  man  quarrels  not  with  his  bread  and 
butter,  and  women  who  make  pleasure-trips  to  Simla 
in  February  are  not  to  be  held  accountable  beyond 
the  regular  per  diem  rates  in  rupees. 

The  nights  at  Simla  were  something  to  benumb 
an  arctic  explorer,  and  it  was  a  relief  to  rise  in  dark- 
ness and  leave  the  tonga  station  long  before  the 
sunrise  glow  was  seen  beyond  Jakko's  heights.  As 
we  galloped  away  and  down,  the  shadow  of  the 
Plimalayas  retreated  from  the  tawny,  hazy  plain— 
a  plain,  as  level  and  vast  as  the  ocean,  lying  be- 
neath the  frost-haze.  We  had  another  sunny  break- 
fast at  Solon,  and,  timing  our  halts,  we  found  two 
minutes  by  the  watch  sufficient  to  change  ponies  at 
any  station.  At  ten  minutes  past  two  o'clock,  seven 
hours  after  leaving  Simla,  we  were  at  Kalka  post- 
ofiice,  and  a  train  soon  carried  us  on  to  Ambala, 


322  WINTER  INDIA 

where  a  four-hour  wait  was  enlivened  by  the  de- 
parture of  a  wedding-party  from  the  cantonment. 
Ladies  in  laces  and  pale  pink  goAvns  brightened  the 
dark  train-shed  and  platforms  as  they  threw  slip- 
pers and  rice.  Silk-hatted  men  in  frock-coats  and 
pearl  trousers  covered  the  rails  with  torpedoes  that 
gave  joyful  salute  as  the  wheels  rolled  over  them. 
A  gorgeously  turbaned  person  in  a  gold  brocade 
dressing-gown  and  silver-toed,  green  leather  slippers, 
and  who  ought  to  have  been  one  of  the  hill  rajas 
we  forever  read  about,  caught  the  eye  completely. 
Sad  to  say,  he  was  only  the  coachman  of  a  polo-play- 
ing hill  raja  who  had  sent  the  bride  and  groom  to 
the  train  in  his  state  landau. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


ALWAR 


|HE  snporior  tourist  in  India  nsnally 
makes  a  point  of  his  acquaintance  with 
rulers  of  native  states,  generally  harps 
on  the  fact  unduly,  and  raises  bitter- 
ness in  the  heart  of  the  plain  tourist 
and  common  sight-seer,  who  cannot  refer  casually 
to  the  rajas,  diwans,  residents,  and  political  agents 
he  knows.  "I  was  the  guest  of  the  raja  at  So-and- 
So,"  **I  was  put  up  at  the  maharaja's  bangla  in 
Here-and-There, "  say  such  enviable  beings.  One 
listens  with  envy  and  deep  humility  if  he  does 
not  know  that  a  card  from  one's  consul,  even  a 
courteously  worded  note  from  the  tourist  himself, 
will  secure  one  the  privilege  of  stopping  at  the  gov- 
ernment rest-house  or  raja's  bangla  in  a  native  state 
— at  a  fixed  price  for  his  lodging  and  carriage.  One 
makes  the  usual  grand  tour  and  sees  the  great  sights 
of  India  without  leaving  British  territory,  although 
one  third  of  the  area  and  one  fifth  the  population 
of  India  are  under  native  rule.  Hyderabad  in  the 
Deccan,  where  the  Nizam  rules  twelve  millions  of 
people  occupying  a  territory  as  large  as  Italy,  Udai- 
pur  (spelled  in  seventy-two  different  ways),  Jodh- 

323 


324  WINTER  INDIA 

pur,  Baroda,  Indore,  Alwar,  Gwalior,  and  Kashmir 
are  the  native  states  the  tourist  finds  most  worth  see- 
ing. "I  am  only  visiting  native  states  on  this  trip," 
said  one  superior  traveler.  "I  do  not  care  for  the 
beaten  track."  When  we  met  him  on  the  grand 
thoroughfare  weeks  later  and  asked  as  to  his  enjoy- 
ment of  innermost  India,  he  denounced  native  rulers 

in  sweeping  terms.    ' '  I  arrived  in the  day  the 

raja  died  in  Calcutta,  so  there  was  nothing  doing 
there,  unless  I  waited  a  week  to  see  a  funeral.     I 

presented  my  letter  to  the  diwan  at  and  he 

said:  'I  am  very  sorry,  but  His  Highness  has  been 
so  intoxicated  for  the  past  fortnight  that  he  has  not 
seen  any  one.  He  is  drinking  a  bottle  of  brandy  and 
one  of  chartreuse  a  day,  in  addition  to  much  cham- 
pagne and  Scotch  and  soda.  I  really  cannot  say 
when  His  Highness  will  be  fit  to  receive  visitors 

again.'     At  it   rained   cats   and   dogs,   the 

bangla  leaked,  the  bedding  was  wet,  and  the  food 
bad,  and  I  came  away  without  presenting  my  letter. 
All  India  is  off  the  beaten  track," 

We  stopped  at  Alwar,  in  Rajputana,  on  our  way 
back  to  Agra  to  keep  our  engagement  with  the  Feb- 
ruary moon  in  the  garden  of  the  Taj.  We  reached  Al- 
war station,  as  we  had  reached  so  many  other  places, 
between  one  and  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  There 
was  no  carriage,  no  khansamah,  nor  any  one  from 
the  maharaja's  bangla  to  meet  us— only  sodden 
darkness  and  the  platform  of  the  small  railway  sta- 
tion. A  tiny  ekka  was  found,  and  in  some  way  we, 
with  the  luggage  and  bearer,  managed  to  get  in 
the  absurd  little  cab,  and  a  mite  of  a  pony  managed 


ALWAR  327 

to  pull  us  to  the  bangla.    A  sleepy  khansamah  made 
us  comfortable  for  the  rest  of  the  night. 

A  relay  of  messengers,  and  finally  a  victoria  with 
men  in  blue  palace  livery,  came  from  the  diwan,  or 
prime  minister  of  the  tiny  empire,  at  nine  in  the 
morning.  We  were  driven  to  his  house,  and  went 
through  many  anterooms  to  a  cool,  dark  inner  draw- 
ing-room, where  a  portly  personage  in  a  mixed  Ori- 
ental and  European  costume  of  white  flannel  re- 
ceived us  with  great  cordiality.  His  little  daughter, 
in  a  woolen  hood  and  many  calico  coats,  but  with  only 
jingling  anklets  to  keep  her  little  bare  brown  feet 
and  legs  warm,  was  brought  in  and  duly  admired, 
and  then  he  presented  one  Soorajbux,  the  learned 
librarian  of  the  high  school,  who  was  detailed 
as  our  cicerone  for  the  day.  He  took  us  first  to  the 
modern  palace,  a  suburban  villa  full  of  European 
furniture  and  notions,  where  the  young  raja  spent 
his  occasional  vacations  from  the  Mayo  College  at 
Ajmir.  Among  the  incongruities  in  the  raja's  study 
was  a  framed  chromolithograph  of  Wood's  single- 
apron  binder  at  work  in  an  American  wheat-field. 
There  were  inclined  planes  as  well  as  staircases  that 
the  ruler  might  ride  to  his  bedchamber  if  he  wished, 
and  a  beautiful  durbar  hall  with  carved  window- 
lattices.  From  the  upper  windows  we  looked  down 
upon  a  sunken  garden,  once  a  sacred  tank,  where 
fern-  and  orchid-houses  overflowed  with  beautiful 
plants;  and  by  avenues  of  bo-  and  banian-trees  we 
reached  the  garden  of  the  lions,  tigers,  and  bears, 
home  also  of  wonderful  red,  blue,  and  yellow  parrots 
who  uttered  long  Rajput  sentences. 


328  WINTER   INDIA 

We  drove  rapidly  back  to  the  city  and  through 
the  bazaars,  where  women  in  gaily  embroidered  phul- 
karis  set  with  looking-glasses  seemed  to  have  walked 
away  in  those  long-favored  decorations  of  British 
drawing-rooms.  We  saw  the  stables,  the  five  hundred 
horses,  the  forty  elephants  tramping  and  swinging 
their  trunks  in  idleness  "for  the  honor  and  glory  of 
the  raja,"  and  then  made  another  dash  through  city 
streets,  with  the  populace  saluting  the  palace  equi- 
page. In  one  court  of  the  palace,  an  elephant  in 
state  trappings  and  a  body-guard  of  soldiers  waited 
before  the  temple  where  the  raja's  mother  was  pray- 
ing. In  the  next  court,  the  bearded  keeper  of  the 
library  waited  for  us  in  highly  impatient  mood. 
He  had  been  waiting  for  hours,  by  the  diwan's 
command,  and,  with  much  communing  in  his  beard, 
he  produced  the  books  which  are  Alwar's  pride— 
a  beautifully  illuminated  Koran,  a  gorgeous  Gu- 
listan  whose  medallions,  letters,  and  borders  would 
excite  a  Western  bibliophile,  many  Persian  books 
illuminated  by  the  best  old  Delhi  painters,— and 
showed  us  one  room  full  of  sacred  Vedas. 

We  were  taken  on  to  farther  courts  and  through 
many  marble  halls  to  the  banquet-hall,  where  the 
long  dining-table  was  of  solid  silver.  The  water 
ran  gurgling  in  silver  channels  down  its  length,  and 
jeweled  birds  in  gold  and  silver  cages  warbled  over 
this  precious  garden-bed.  There  was  a  beautiful 
white-marble  durbar  hall  with  carved  balconies  and 
lattices,  and  a  glittering  Shish  Mahal  adjoining  it, 
all  a  dazzle  of  mirrors  and  colored  glass.  It  further 
overlooked  a  great  tank  or  lake  surrounded  by  mar- 


ALWAR  329 

ble  terraces,  balustrades,  and  pavilions,  with  a  rug- 
ged mountain  fortress  crowning  the  perpendicular 
rock  mass  beyond  the  tank.  It  was  a  fairyland  sight 
by  day,  and  when  illuminated  for  viceregal  fetes 
must  transcend  all  Indian  fantasies.  A  picturesque 
old  turban  claimed  us  and  led  the  way  to  the  armory, 
where  room  after  room  was  filled  with  weapons  with 
murderous  and  agonizing  edges  and  points;  their 
handles  jeweled,  carved,  inlaid,  and  damascened ;  the 
blades  wonderfully  tempered,  mottled  and  grained, 
often  chased  and  inlaid  with  verses.  One  sword- 
blade  had  a  shallow  runnel  near  the  hilt,  in  which  a 
dozen  loose  pearls  ran  up  and  down  in  the  gummy 
ooze  of  oil  left  by  the  zealous  cleaners.  Sword-hilts 
set  with  pearls,  rubies,  and  diamonds;  jade  hilts 
jeweled  all  over;  and  hilts  of  Jeypore  enamel  were 
the  delight  of  the  gleeful,  proud  old  armorer,  who 
had  a  dramatic  way  of  drawing  a  blade,  giving  it 
a  flourish  in  air,  and  presenting  it  suddenly  level 
with  one's  eyes  for  close  inspection.  We  had  finally 
to  tear  ourselves  away  from  the  array  of  more  and 
more  terrible  weapons  his  minions  brought  from 
some  inexhaustible  storehouse— spears,  daggers,  ele- 
phant-goads, battle-axes,  and  chopping-knives  of 
terrible  ingenuity.  The  jewels  of  Alwar,  the  emer- 
ald cup,  and  the  precious  cabochon  fringes  would 
take  pages  to  themselves,  rivaling  as  they  do  the 
collections  of  temples. 

We  were  hurried  out  to  the  white  court  overlooked 
by  the  zenana  windows  to  see  the  return  of  the  maha- 
rani,— such  a  spectacular  scene  that  it  was  a  pity 
the  central  figure  in  it  was  so  curtained  and  veiled 


330  WINTER  INDIA 

as  not  to  be  able  to  see  it  herself.  Lancers  on  horse- 
back, state  elephants  and  color-bearers,  first  ap- 
peared in  the  white  archway  and,  with  the  troops, 
ranged  themselves  around  the  dazzling  court.  Sil- 
ver palanquins  with  red  silk  curtains  held  the  royal 
ladies,  and  three  hundred  women  attendants  muffled 
in  red,  yellow,  and  white  draperies  chanted  as  they 
walked  beside  them.  It  was  such  a  brilliant  pageant 
that  we  could  hardly  believe  it  the  ordinary  week- 
day proceeding.  To  prove  how  much  more  splendid 
Alwar  rulers  could  be  on  gala  occasions,  they  showed 
us  a  two-story  red  and  gold  elephant  carriage  in 
which  fifty  people  ride  in  state  processions,  and  store- 
houses full  of  jeweled  elephant  trappings. 

Then  we  saw  the  chetahs,  or  hunting  leopards, 
huge  spotted  yellow  cats,  blindfolded  and  wearing 
funny  little  leather  caps,  and  tied  head,  tail,  and 
legs  to  a  cage  or  skeleton  stall.  They  stood  inert 
as  wooden  cats,  and  would  neither  growl,  snap, 
nor  even  wink  when  the  keepers  tried  to  rouse  them, 
two  men  lifting  a  chetah  and  setting  it  down  as 
they  might  lift  and  move  a  four-legged  table.  In 
the  jail  yard  and  workshops  the  law  breakers  were 
contentedly  weaving  carpets,  dhurries,  and  cloth, 
making  paper,  grinding  corn,  and  otherwise  mak- 
ing themselves  useful.  The  leader,  a  red-handed 
murderer,  chanted  the  carpet  pattern,  and  his  fel- 
low-criminals bawled  loudly  in  response,  tying  "one 
green,  three  white,  two  blue"  automatically.  There 
are  already  hereditary  criminals  in  these  modern, 
comfortable  jails,  and  the  jail  caste  is  fast  becom- 
ing a  definite  order. 


.t  I 


ALWAR  333 

Soorajbux  took  us  to  his  high-school  building, 
showed  us  his  illuminated  Persian  books,  and  asked 
many  naive  questions  about  the  outer  world.  ''The 
Japanese— are  they  at  all  like  the  Hindus?  Of  what 
religious  caste  are  they?  Are  they  civilized  like 
us?"  And  we  left  Soorajbux  exclaiming:  "What! 
they  are  the  most  refined  and  artistic  people  in  the 
world !  Their  art  a  revelation  to  and  the  despair 
of  all  Europe !  They  are  more  esthetic  than  the  Eng- 
lish !  How  very  wonderful !  Do  the  English 
know  it?" 

In  the  afternoon  the  courteous  old  diwan  returned 
our  visit,  his  yellow  turban  and  suite  sending  the 
bangla  staff  into  such  agitation  that  we  barely 
made  the  station  and  train  in  time  as  a  fierce  thun- 
der-storm came  on.  We  dined  and  waited  a  few 
hours  at  Bandikui  Junction,  and  then  took  train  for 
Agra,  arriving  at  half-past  three  in  the  morning; 
for,  no  matter  from  which  direction  the  traveler 
comes,  it  seems  impossible  ever  to  reach  Agra  at  a 
rational  hour.  We  stopped  this  time  at  the  hotel 
where  the  German  professor  had  enjoyed  the  grilled 
mutton-chops,  and  a  notice  on  the  wall  of  my  room 
requested:  "Visitors  will  please  not  beat  the  ser- 
vants, but  report  them  to  the  manager,  who  will 
punish  them, ' ' 

We  revisited  the  Taj  on  a  gray,  cloudy  morning, 
the  moist  air  heavy  with  the  fragrance  of  flowers. 
We  sat  again  on  the  balcony  of  the  Jasmine  Tower 
at  the  fort  and  watched  a  murky  sunlight  play  upon 
the  distant  white  bubbles  of  the  Taj,  and  then  took 
an  afternoon  train  for  Cwalior.     The  whole  time- 


334  WINTER   INDIA 

table  of  the  Indian  Midland  Railway  was  put  out  of 
joint  and  our  train  made  an  hour  late  by  the  lamp 
dropping  through  the  roof  of  our  compartment. 
Guards  and  station-masters  at  three  stopping-places 
chattered  and  gave  frenzied  orders,  and  while  a 
small  lamp  was  in  some  way  tied  into  the  large 
socket,  nothing  could  bring  a  man  of  sufficiently 
ignoble  caste  to  wipe  the  oil  and  broken  glass  from 
the  floor. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 


GWAIJOR 


|FTER  any  experience  with  the  ordinary 
dak  bangla  and  the  up-country  hotels, 
the  Mussaffirkhana,  the  maharaja's 
rest-house  at  Gwalior,  is  a  dream  of 
luxury.  Used  only  to  dirty  carpets  and 
dhurries,  or  ancient  reed  mattings  laid  on  cement 
or  mud  floors,  we  rubbed  our  eyes  at  sight  of  the 
shining  white  stairway,  at  the  clean,  soft-piled  carpets 
of  the  beautiful  white  villa,  and  more  at  the  great- 
windowed  bedrooms  that  were  actually  furnished. 
There  were  real  bureaus  and  real  beds — complete 
beds  with  springs,  mattresses,  pillows,  sheets,  blan- 
kets, and  spreads !  AVe  sat  down  in  amaze,  and  the 
sense  of  wonder  was  exhausted  when  we  found  every 
lock,  hinge,  knob,  and  fastening  of  the  doors  and 
windows  in  working  order  and  the  whole  place  spot- 
lessly clean.  Such  sights  had  not  been  seen  since 
Colombo.  Below-stairs  the  pretty  drawing-room  and 
dining-room  were  as  w^ell  kept  and  modern.  The 
Mussaffirkhana  was  the  greatest  surprise  in  India, 
the  enlightened  maharaja  a  special  providence  to 
hardship-worn  tourists  fortunate  enough  to  be  per- 
mitted to  inhabit  that  abode  of  bliss,  a  literal  rest- 
is  335 


336  WINTER  INDIA 

house  and  a  temple  of  cleanliness  and  order.  Natur- 
ally we  dreamed  of  American  hotels  and  other  high 
products  of  our  civilization,  and  happily  waked  to 
find  the  Mussaffirkhana  not  a  dream  but  luxurious 
reality.  After  the  chota  hazri,  as  daintily  perfect  as 
the  little  breakfast  of  a  Paris  hotel,  we  drove  about 
the  well-kept  town  in  a  palace  carriage,  a  perfectly 
appointed  victoria.  The  streets  were  lined  with  white 
houses,  whose  tracery  windows  and  ornamental  bal- 
conies were  worthy  an  art  museum.  The  street 
crowds  were  most  brilliant,  and  more  yellow  was  worn 
in  Gwalior  than  elsewhere,  along  with  the  endless 
variety  of  Mahratta  turbans,  which  surpass  in  num- 
ber and  originality  those  of  any  other  people.  The 
very  imposing  coachman  snapped  his  whip  and  the 
blooded  horses  sped  away  like  the  wind,  straight 
down  the  middle  of  each  street,  the  sais  yelping 
shrill  warnings,  the  crowds  parting  automatically 
and  saluting  the  palace  livery.  We  saw  the  beauti- 
ful unfinished  temple  to  Sindhia  's  mother,  for  which 
the  stone-cutters  were  chipping  out  as  fine  traceries 
and  latticings  as  any  in  Delhi  or  Agra,  and  then  re- 
turned for  the  serious  British  breakfast,  at  a  table 
fragrant  with  roses  and  mignonette.  It  was  radiant, 
mild,  ideal  spring  weather,  and  after  all  our  suf- 
ferings from  cold  we  basked  with  delight  in  the  open 
air,  faring  forth  again  to  the  foot  of  the  rock-fortress 
which  rises  like  Gibraltar  from  the  plain.  A  splen- 
did elephant  in  red-velvet  trappings  stood  waving 
its  trunk  as  we  drove  up,  and  at  the  word  of  com- 
mand sank  upon  its  hind  legs  in  a  deep  courtesy, 
stretched  out  its  great  body,  slowly  bent  its  fore 


GWALIOR  339 

legs  and  sank  to  the  ground,  and  we  climbed  up  a 
ladder  to  the  dos-a-dos  car  or  saddle  on  its  back. 
With  earthquake  heaves,  a  rock  this  way  and  a  lurch 
that  way,  it  stood  erect  and  lumbered  up  the  steep, 
flagged  path,  through  six  defensive  gateways,  to  the 
blue-tiled  walls  of  the  "painted  palace"  at  the  edge 
of  the  rock.  We  penetrated  its  deserted  courts  all 
carved  with  flat  traceries  and  arabesques  and  set 
with  enameled  tilings  and  stone  latticings,  and  from 
the  flat  roof  had  an  unlimited  view  over  the  level 
yellow  plain  more  than  three  hundred  feet  below. 

Again  our  stately  transport  knelt,  we  climbed  to 
the  red- velvet  jaunting-car  on  its  back,  and  it  paced 
across  the  flat,  table-topped  mesa  to  the  half-ruined 
Jain  temples,  where  conquering  Moguls  wreaked 
their  fanatic  zeal,  chipping  and  mutilating  the 
myriad  tiny  figures  in  the  bas-reliefs  with  which 
walls  and  columns  were  covered,  and  further  effacing 
them  with  coats  of  chunam  and  whitewash.  The 
wealth  of  intricate  ornament  lavished  on  these 
temples  would  be  incomprehensible  were  there  not 
the  perfect  Jain  temples  at  Mount  Abu  to  show  what 
the  shrines  of  Gwalior  rock  once  were  in  less  degree. 
While  we  lingered  at  that  angle  of  the  rock's  para- 
pet to  look  down  upon  the  city  below  us,  the  yellow- 
turbaned  mahout  made  his  elephant  do  tricks  like 
any  poodle.  It  picked  up  and  threw  stones,  waved 
its  spotted  ears  and  trunk  as  commanded,  and  nosed 
up  the  tiniest  coins  from  grass  or  gravel  and  gave 
them  to  the  mahout.  It  lumbered  after  us  over  the 
grass  as  tamely  as  a  kitten,  its  great  soft  feet  shuf- 
fling with  a  strange  barefoot  tread  as  it  followed  us 


340  WINTER  INDIA 

to  a  pyramidal  temple  ruin  very  similar  to  the  Bud- 
dhist ruins  in  Java.  The  same  indefatigable  Major 
Keith  who  rescued  and  preserved  the  old  carved  and 
tiled  palace  worked  over  this  temple,  too,  restoring 
the  gateway  and  replacing  as  far  as  possible  every 
carved  fragment.  We  remounted,  and  the  mahout 
guided  the  monster  down  the  road  and  then  close 
beside  the  parapet,  goaded  it  until  it  was  as  close 
to  the  coping  as  possible,  and  then  bade  us  look 
down  and  see  the  rock-sculptures  that  adorn  the 
perpendicular  face  of  a  ravine  of  the  rock.  With 
three  hundred  feet  of  space  below  our  feet,  the 
breathing  of  the  elephant  seeming  enough  to  burst 
the  girths  that  bound  the  car  to  it,  and  its  lurches 
as  it  shifted  its  weight  from  one  foot  to  the  other 
enough  to  propel  us  into  the  air,  we  cared  nothing 
for  bas-reliefs  and  images.  A  tank  far  below,  and 
the  winding  white  Lashkar  road,  seemed  to  sway  in 
air  and  rise  toward  us,  and  we  clutched  the  car- 
frame  in  agony  and  begged  only  to  be  taken  down 
to  the  safe  level  of  the  plain  again,  to  horses  and 
wheeled  vehicles.  We  could  easily  believe  that  much 
elephant-riding  makes  one  mad,  and  that  the  motion 
and  the  heat  of  the  elephant's  body  affect  the  spine 
and  shorten  the  life  of  a  mahout.  After  the  jerk- 
ing and  jolting  of  its  downhill  progress  we  gladly 
left  the  gentle  giantess  in  the  red-velvet  cloak  sa- 
laaming and  putting  its  trunk  to  its  forehead  in 
thanks,  in  ridiculous  parody  of  the  slim  little  mahout 
beside  it. 

We  were  allowed  to  peep  into  the  court  of  the 
Jama  Mas j  id  without  unshoeing,  and  went  then  to 


GWALIOR  341 

see  the  splendid  and  impressive  tomb  of  Mohammed 
Ghaus,  a  Moslem  saint  of  Akbar's  time,  who  rests  in 
an  immense  domed  hall  shut  in  by  sandstone  lattices 
of  exquisite  and  intricate  design.  Next  came  the  tomb 
of  Tansen,  a  musician,  sheltered  by  a  tamarind-tree 
whose  leaves,  if  chewed  prayerfully,  will  secure  one  a 
sweet  voice.  The  dancing-girls  come  to  worship  at 
this  tomb,  and  tree  after  tree  has  been  stripped  of 
leaves  and  killed,  so  that  seedling  descendants  are 
kept  at  hand  to  replace  them. 

'*  Memsahib,"  said  the  bearer,  excitedly,  **  there 
will  be  fight  this  day  with  lion,  unicorn, and  elephant. 
Will  memsahib  see?"  Learning  that  the  unicorn 
was  a  rhinoceros,  we  were  ready  to  see  the  fray 
which  is  the  national  pastime,  as  in  Akbar's  day. 
A  British  major  from  Rawal  Pindi  cantonment, 
showing  India  by  winter  to  a  visiting  niece  and 
nephew,  and  staying  at  the  Mussaffirkhana,  implored 
us  so  earnestly  not  to  go  that  we  deferred  to  his  ad- 
vice— and  have  regretted  it  ever  since,  wondering 
how  much  of  local  color  and  national  character  we 
missed  in  not  seeing  Sindhia's  subjects  at  their  fa- 
vorite sport,  to  which  bull-fighting  must  be  child's 
play. 

The  bazaars  were  brilliant  enough  when  crowded 
with  white-clad  Mahratta  men  in  their  fantastic  tur- 
bans, and  Mahratta  women  in  full,  bunchy  skirts  of 
every  hue,  swinging  and  tilting  past,  clashing  and 
jangling  their  anklets;  but  when  a  part  of  the  raja's 
body-guard,  preceding  the  maharani  on  her  way  to 
worship,  paraded  down  a  street  of  white  houses, 
the  stage  pageant  was  complete.     Horsemen  in  gay 


342  WINTEE  INDIA 

uniform  and  gorgeous  turbans,  with  fluttering  pen- 
nons; horses  in  bright  saddle-cloths,  yellow  bridles 
and  trimmings;  a  state  elephant  in  red  velvet  and 
gold  trappings,  with  cloth-of-gold  curtains  to  its 
gilded  howdah;  and  a  troop  of  women  surrounding 
the  gilded  palanquin,  made  up  a  very  spectacular 
church  parade.  It  was  all  so  splendidly  theatrical, 
so  really  Oriental,  as  at  Alwar,  that  we  said:  ''This 
is  the  last  touch,  the  perfect  climax.  Let  us  go 
quickly,  before  the  curtain  falls,  the  people  put  on 
their  every-day  clothes,  and  we  are  disillusioned.  Let 
Gwalior  remain  in  memory  with  all  the  bloom  of  the 
first  overpowering  impression. ' '  We  would  not  wait 
two  days  on  the  chance  of  meeting  Sindhia  himself 
when  he  should  return  from  a  hunting-trip,  and 
we  took  train  for  Agra— arriving  at  midnight,  of 
course. 

We  had  a  quiet  Sunday  to  revisit  tombs  in  ap- 
propriate observance  of  the  day,  and  to  sit  again  on 
the  Jasmine  Tower  and  watch  the  sunset  play  over 
the  Taj  Mahal.  There  was  an  unmistakable  Sabbath 
atmosphere  to  the  view,  although  the  dhobiemen 
were  swinging,  pounding,  and  spreading  out  acres 
of  cloths  to  dry  on  the  flats  below  the  fort,  and  twit- 
tering parrakeets  flashed  in  and  out  of  the  creviced 
wall,  and  fluttered  over  the  dry  moat  where  Akbar's 
elephants  and  unicorns  fought  for  his  entertainment. 
A  sudden  impulse  seized  us  as  the  pageant  began, 
and  we  hurried  to  the  gharry,  implored  the  sais  to 
make  all  speed,  and  running  through  the  garden  of 
the  Taj,  settled  ourselves  once  more  in  the  upper 
story  of  the  western  minaret  overhanging  the  river. 


GWALIOR  343 

The  great  white  temple  was  richly  yellow  in  the  last 
beams  of  the  sun,  with  blue  shadows  in  every  recess. 
Softly  rolling  white  clouds  across  the  Jumna  took 
on  rose-lights  and  were  reflected  in  the  river.  The 
Taj  flushed  rose-pink,  and  before  the  golden  burst 
of  the  afterglow  had  faded  the  February  moon  rose 
full,  round,  blood-red  in  the  east.  The  vision  was 
complete.  Fifteen  times  had  we  entered  the  garden 
of  the  Taj,  and  each  time  the  spell  of  the  Taj  was 
stronger. 

The  next  day  dragged  through  with  odds  and  ends 
of  sight-seeing  until  sunset.  We  dutifully  did  the 
jail,  the  most  populous  in  India,  where  often  a  thou- 
sand prisoners  are  kept,  and  carpet-weaving  is  the 
chief  of  many  industries.  Great  efforts  have  been 
made,  by  following  the  best  old  designs  and  using 
only  vegetable  dyes,  to  attain  a  high  standard  and 
keep  the  Agra  carpets  first  in  the  foreign  market. 
Thirteen  rupees  a  square  yard  is  the  average  price, 
and  over  five  thousand  yards  are  woven  a  year,  the 
jail  earning  90,000  rupees  a  year  by  its  industries. 
Agra  criminals  long  furnished  the  best  jail  carpets 
in  India,  but  good  conduct  reduced  the  time  of  some 
and  Jubilee  benevolence  released  others  of  the  best 
long-sentence  weavers,  and  the  Agra  carpets  declined 
for  a  time.  That  afternoon  we  stayed  by  the  Jas- 
mine Tower  and  watched  the  white  bubbles  on  the 
horizon  flush  rose-red  for  a  brief  moment  against 
a  misty  gray  sky.  Then  white  mists  rolled  up  from 
the  river,  and  rain-clouds  gathered  and  hid  the  Taj 
IMahal  forever  from  our  view. 


CHAPTER   XXV 


JEYPORE 


|T  Agra  we  were  midway  in  the  penin- 
sula— eight  hundred  and  forty-one 
miles  from  Calcutta,  and  eight  hun- 
dred anc"  forty-eight  miles  from  Bom- 
bay. It  was  very  cold,  and  rain  was 
falling  in  sheets  when  we  started,  late  at  night,  to 
ride  the  one  hundred  and  forty-nine  miles  to  Jeypore, 
and  during  the  night  it  grew  colder.  Clouds  of 
dust  came  through  the  loose,  rattling  carriage-win- 
dows, and  when  we  shook  off  our  razais  at  daylight, 
near  Jeypore,  there  was  a  small  dust-storm  in  our 
compartment. 

The  pompous,  fat  proprietor  of  the  Hotel  Kaiser- 
i-Hind  was  strutting  the  platform  in  a  solferino 
plush  coat,  waving  a  telegram  and  shouting  for 
"Eliza!  Eliza!" — meaning  the  person  who  had  sent 
the  message.  His  rival,  the  proprietor  of  the  dak 
bangla,  fawned  at  our  elbow,  beseeching  us  to  come 
to  his  house  instead,  and  there  was  wordy  war  be- 
tween the  two  across  me,  charge  and  counter-charge. 
"I  will  furnish  elephant  for  Amber,  no  charge!" 
shouted  one.  ' '  Oh,  memsahib !  memsahib ! ' '  hissed 
the  other,  'Hhat  elephant  no  good  elephant,  not  got 

344 


JEYPORE  345 

teeth."  "Mine  is  first-class  family  hotel,"  roared 
the  solferino  villain.  "Oh,  his  is  dirty,  rotten  hotel," 
wailed  the  other.  "Please  come  my  house,  please 
come  my  house,  I  am  poor  man,"  bawled  the  bangla- 
keeper,  as  the  big  solferino  banged  the  carriage-door 
on  his  trophies  and  climbed  the  box  to  guard  us  from 
being  kidnapped  on  the  way. 

The  dining-room  of  the  Kaiser-i-Hind  was  in  the 
cellar-like  ground  floor,  and  an  outside  staircase  led 
to  the  cement  terrace  or  roof  on  which  the  bedrooms 
opened— lofty  rooms,  with  many  doors  and  long  win- 
dows to  admit  air  in  the  hot  weather  when  the  hotel 
is  empty,  and  fireplaces  the  size  of  a  crumb-tray  to 
warm  them  on  the  frosty  nights  when  the  place  is 
filled  with  shivering,  sneezing  tourists.  Two  dozen 
times  the  solferino  one  asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  guide 
for  Jeypore,  and  as  many  times  he  received  the  de- 
cisive "No."  Two  babus  were  breakfasting  in  the 
general  room,  quite  like  Europeans,  and  speedily 
opened  conversation.  No  discouragements  could 
check  their  volubility,  and  we  watched  to  see  what 
game  was  premeditated.  "I  am  not  common  man," 
said  the  larger  turban.  "  I  am  prince.  I  am  Nawab 
of  Behar.  Go!  fetch  me  those  letters  from  the 
duke, ' '  he  said  to  his  companion,  who  returned  with 
a  greasy  note,  worn  like  a  beggar's  certificate.  The 
secretary  of  the  Duke  of  Connaught  had  A\Titten  to 
"His  Highness  Mer  Abdul-asal  Alum  Khan,  Nawab 
of  Behar,"  to  express  condolences  on  the  death  of 
the  Nawab 's  wife.  Then  this  doubtful  Nawab,  eat- 
ing in  the  public  room  of  an  inn  with  casteless  un- 
believers, told  us  that  his  family  owned  the  Espla- 


346  WINTER  INDIA 

nade  Hotel  in  Bombay,  and  that  he  spent  much  time 
there.  He  offered  to  telegraph  to  his  brother-ruler 
of  Indore,  or  to  any  native  state  we  might  wish  to 
visit.  He  would  even  take  us  around  Jeypore  and 
show  us  the  sights,  since  he  had  nothing  else  to  do 
that  day.  He  would  take  us  to  the  shops— and  then 
all  suspicions  crystallized  without  this  democratic 
raja  adding:  "I  will  take  you  to  the  best  shops.  I 
am  not  common  man  after  commission. ' '  This  latest 
form  of  tout,  the  princely  one  of  the  table  d  'hote,  was 
such  an  amusing  climax  to  our  touting  experiences 
that  we  could  hardly  keep  serious  countenances  be- 
fore the  clumsy  confidence-man  and  his  accomplice. 
His  tongue  ran  on  and  on,  in  sheer  joy  in  its  run- 
ning. "I  want  not  commissions  on  what  you  buy. 
I  want  not  money  in  this  world — only  friends,  and 
weeping  when  I  am  dead."  We  could  not  tell  how 
much  conspiracy  there  was  between  this  pair  and  the 
solferino  landlord,  who  had  been  so  persistent  about 
our  taking  a  guide ;  but  the  solferino  one  handed  the 
Nawab  into  a  carriage  with  a  great  flourish  just  as 
our  "fitton"  drew  up.  "You  are  going  to  the  mu- 
seum?" asked  the  Nawab.  ''So  are  we";  and  he 
was  whirled  away  without  escort  or  outriders.  He 
stood  on  the  museum  steps  dumbly  staring  when  our 
carriage  went  past  him  toward  the  city  gates,  and 
when  we  did  return  to  the  museum,  two  hours  later, 
the  Nawab  was  waiting  and  showed  the  strain  of 
that  long  suspense.  The  pair  followed  us  from  case 
to  case  for  a  while,  profuse  in  praises  of  what  we 
looked  at  longest,  voluble  until  we  put  direct  ques- 
tions to  them  about  the  methods  and  processes  of 


JEYPORE  347 

manufacture  of  some  of  the  old  art  objects.  "I  can 
find  you  shop  to  make  you  copy  of  anything  you 
see  here,"  repeated  the  bogus  Nawab  several  times 
plaintively.  To  end  the  farce,  which  had  then  been 
played  long  enough,  we  confided  loudly  to  each  other 
in  prearranged  dialogue  that  we  had  not  an  anna  left 
for  shopping  in  Jeypore — only  our  railway  tickets 
and  rupees  enough  to  get  to  Bombay.  The  Nawab 
melted  away  without  adieu  and  was  seen  no  more. 

This  art  museum,  housed  in  a  beautiful  palace  in 
a  park,  is  filled  with  the  choicest  examples  of  old 
pottery,  brass,  enamel,  gold-  and  silver-work,  carv- 
ing, weaving,  embroidery,  jewelry,  and  everything 
else  on  which  Indian  fancy  and  genius  lavished  dec- 
oration in  the  past.  At  the  art  school  in  the  city 
replicas  of  many  of  the  museum  objects  were  for 
sale,  and  others  could  be  commanded.  The  class  of 
young  brass-beaters  sat  in  the  cellar-like  entrance 
of  the  school,  beating  out  Saracenic  traceries  as  bor- 
ders of  large  brass  trays  sunk  in  beds  of  pitch ;  and 
a  dyer  and  his  wife  next  door  walked  up  and  down, 
stretching  between  them  to  dry  the  rainbow-striped 
cotton  head-sheets  which  are  a  specialty  of  Jeypore. 
Everywhere  in  this  "rose-red  city,  half  as  old  as 
time,"  the  street  groups  were  so  theatrically  pictur- 
esque that  we  forgot  everything  in  watching  them. 
The  city  is  new,  architecturally,  and  its  two  long, 
straight  streets,  crossing  at  right  angles  by  the  palace 
walls,  cause  all  picturesqueness  to  converge  there. 
The  crowds  were  so  brilliant  and  fantastic  that  one 
remembers  Jeypore  as  some  pageant  in  grand  opera, 
the  bazaars  more  spectacular  than  even  those  of  La- 


348  WINTER  INDIA 

hore.  At  noon,  we  saw  the  broad  main  street  crowded 
from  curb  to  curb  with  men  in  white  clothes,  with 
gay  turbans  and  shawls,— a  crowd  that  swayed  and 
surged  and  moved  until  the  long  expanse  of  turbans 
was  like  a  tulip-bed  in  the  wind.  It  was  the  climax 
of  all  Indian  street  scenes,  and  such  a  kaleidoscopic 
play  of  color  as  could  only  be  seen  there  on  the  day 
telegraphic  bulletins  are  received  from  the  govern- 
ment opium  auctions,  which  fix  the  price  of  the  drug 
for  the  month. 

At  the  great  Four  Corners  there  is  a  monumental 
fountain,  and  there  elephants  continually  pace  by, 
camel-trains  pass  and  repass,  and  pigeons  descend 
in  clouds  if  one  tosses  a  few  grains  in  air.  Sheeted 
women,  with  jingling  anklets  and  full-swinging 
skirts,  come  to  the  corner  of  the  jewelers'  bazaar 
to  buy  their  glass,  brass,  lacquer,  and  more  precious 
bangles  and  nose-rings.  There  were  wedding  pro- 
cessions passing  the  fountain  all  that  sunny  day, 
which  had-  been  declared  the  lucky  one  of  the  month. 
Many  corteges  were  preceded  by  elephants  in  rich 
velvet  and  bullion  trappings,  their  faces,  trunks,  and 
ears  elaborately  painted.  Jeweled  bridegrooms  went 
by  in  velvet-lined  palkis  hung  from  silver  yokes,  and 
from  time  to  time  the  processions  halted,  a  canvas 
was  spread  on  the  ground  for  the  company  to  sit 
on,  and  nautch-girls— middle-aged  colored  women 
in  bunchy  accordion  skirts  and  full  panoply  of 
jewels — gave  a  deliberate  song-and-dance  interlude. 
These  mature  sirens  literally  "trod"  their  slow- 
footed  measures  in  clumsy,  dusty  leather  shoes  that 
a  hod-carrier  might  wear.     Each  family  circle  wel- 


JEYPORE  351 

corned  us  to  the  company  of  wedding  guests,  and  we 
assisted  at  several  such  interludes.  There  was  the 
palace  to  see— a  modern,  tawdry,  semi-European  af- 
fair of  much  plaster-work,  mirrors,  and  gilding. 
The  carpets  were  rolled  up  in  the  throne-room  of 
the  beautiful  Audience  Hall,  the  furniture  covered 
with  brown  holland,  and  the  state  treasurer,  cross- 
legged  between  two  accountants,  occupied  it  for  the 
day  while  he  paid  off  the  palace  servants.  We  were 
led  down  the  long  marble  paths  of  the  formal  gar- 
den to  see— a  billiard-room.  But  we  saw,  on  the  way, 
the  myriad-bay-windowed  walls  of  the  zenana,  which 
greatly  resembled  the  street  fronts  of  San  Francisco 
hotels.  We  saw  the  palace  stables  and  two  aged  ele- 
phants eating  grass;  and  later  in  the  day  went  to 
"the  lion  and  tiger  museum"  to  see  two  real,  live 
unicorns.  "See,"  said  our  bearer,  "with  how  very 
loose  skins  these  unicorns  are,"  as  he  led  us  to  the 
rhinoceroses'  cage. 

There  were  the  regular,  cut-and-dried  tourists' 
shops  filled  with  crudely  made  weapons,  rough 
brasses  and  potteries,  for  which  gullible  folk  pay 
twice  the  London  price ;  and  one  such  proprietor  met 
us  at  the  door  with  his  visitors'  book  and  insisted 
that  we  should  read  the  praises  of  himself,  his  wares, 
and  the  Indian  tiffin  he  serves  good  patrons,  written 
but  the  day  before  by  some  young  travelers  from 
New  York.  He  dilated  upon  the  virtues  of  Amer- 
icans, and  showed  us  the  boxes  and  boxes  of  trumpery 
stuff  bought  by  those  tourists ;  and  it  was  great  com- 
fort to  us,  the  worthy  poor,  that  we  were  not  as  the 
millionaires   are— to  be  taken   in   by   Brummagem 


352  WINTER  INDIA 

goods    and    cast-iron    sword-blades    at    double    the 
Broadway  prices. 

At  another  shop  of  archaic  weapons  that  had  but 
yesterday  come  from  the  foundry,  we  bought  an 
elephant-goad  for  peace  and  sociability's  sake,  and 
sat  for  an  hour  to  watch  the  panorama  of  the  main 
street.  The  bearded  proprietor  bubbled  away  at  his 
hooka  and  pointed  out  the  Jeypore  celebrities  as 
they  went  by — the  prime  minister,  the  chief  magis- 
trate, the  political  resident, — even  the  treasurer  go- 
ing in  state,  with  an  artillery  escort,  to  pay  visits. 
A  group  of  Brahmans  bringing  sacred  Ganges  water 
from  Benares  had  military  escort,  too,  and  a  military 
band;  and  there  was  an  air  of  religious  state  to  all 
the  great  ekkas  drawn  by  noble  white  bullocks,  the 
kincob  curtains  but  half  concealing  the  rainbow- 
wrapped  women  within.  Noble  graybeards  pranced 
by  on  Arab  horses,  and  five  wedding  processions, 
with  jeweled  nautch-girls  in  gold-gauze  dresses, 
passed  before  us,  the  wise  old  elephants  looking  very 
bored  with  all  this  fuss  and  f olderol  over  the  marriage 
of  small  boys.  A  customer  came  and  bought  some 
big  brasses ;  a  minion  ran  off  and  found  a  dilapidated 
box  for  a  few  annas,  and  they  patched  and  mended 
it  on  the  spot.  Then  the  proprietor  swept  a  glance 
over  the  crowded  thoroughfare  and  let  forth  wails 
like  a  muezzin  on  a  minaret.  A  woman,  bent  under 
a  great  bundle  of  forage,  stepped  aside,  dropped  her 
small  haystack  on  the  shelf -like  floor  of  the  shop, 
and  the  packer's  material  was  bought  from  her,  a 
simple,  direct,  and  primitive  proceeding  that  de- 
lighted me. 


JEYPORE  353 

Such  scorching  sunshine  and  piercing  winds  were 
never  experienced  together  as  in  Jeypore.  One 
needed  an  umbrella  as  protection  from  the  sun  and 
fur  wraps  as  protection  from  the  wind  at  the  same 
time.  We  tiffined  in  the  icy  dining-room  and  took 
coffee  on  the  scorching  terrace,  where  merchants  of 
arms  gathered  daily  to  display  their  ancient  weapons 
—cast-iron  stuff  made  to  order  in  England  to  furnish 
the  "cozy  corners"  of  Christendom,  to  hang  on  the 
walls,  and  to  prop  up  the  divan  draperies  of  so- 
called  Oriental  rooms. 

It  was  on  one  of  the  most  brilliantly  sunny  and 
piercingly  cold  days  that  we  drove  across  the  city 
and  out  to  the  flat  country  beyond,  where  abandoned 
gardens,  crumbling  tombs,  lone  minarets,  and  domes 
lined  the  road,  and  alligators  basked  by  neglected 
tanks  where  green  scum  floated.  As  we  drove  into 
a  courtyard,  a  weary  old  elephant  with  a  painted 
face  sadly  in  need  of  retouching  saluted  us  with 
foot  and  trunk.  It  knelt,  and  we  climbed  to  a 
rickety  charpoy,  or  string-bed  frame,  covered  with 
doubtful  razais.  After  the  noble  beast  at  Gwalior, 
with  its  splendid  trappings  and  comfortable  jaunt- 
ing-car, this  ill-pacing,  moth-eaten,  tourist  elephant 
of  the  Raja  of  Jeypore  was  a  disappointment;  and 
after  it  had  lurched  and  lumbered  along  a  few  miles 
that  we  might  have  done  more  comfortably  in  the 
carriage,  our  disgust  was  unbounded.  We  were  dis- 
enchanted before  the  creature  began  the  steep  ascent 
to  the  deserted  palace  of  Amber,  delighted  that 
the  elephant  is  fast  being  relegated  to  the  back- 
ground, a  creature  for  shows  and  ceremonials  only, 


354  WINTER  INDIA 

the  railway  and  the  automobile  displacing  it  as  a 
means  of  travel,  and  American  overhead  machinery 
crowding  it  out  of  timber-yards;  and  the  Delhi 
durbar  of  1903  very  probably  the  last  great  parade 
of  state  elephants. 

All  the  way  out  from  the  city  the  road  had  been 
streaming  with  people  in  brilliant  clothes  and  the 
kaleidoscopic  street  crowds  of  Jeypore  continued 
far  into  the  country.  Troops  of  Rajputs  in  green, 
white,  and  yellow  clothes,  on  foot,  in  bullock-carts, 
sitting  by  the  roadside,  and  going  in  and  out  of  tem- 
ples, enlivened  the  way,  and,  as  we  mounted  the  side 
of  the  mesa,  we  could  see  this  brilliant  ribbon  of  road 
stretching  away  through  the  level  of  the  abandoned 
city  of  Amber.  The  lurching  elephant  gave  us 
momently  finer  and  wider  views  out  over  the  plain 
of  ruins,  and  finally  lumbered  into  a  court  of  the 
fortress  palace  and  knelt  for  us  thankfully  to  dis- 
mount. In  the  little  temple  to  Kali,  at  the  palace 
entrance,  the  floor  was  still  red  with  the  blood  of 
the  goat  just  sacrificed,  and  we  had  heathendom 
fresh  and  hot  there  at  the  maharaja's  door.  Guide- 
books and  sentimental  tourists  have  said  so  much  in 
praise  of  Amber  that  we  had  keyed  our  expectations 
too  high.  Also,  one  must  land  at  Bombay  and  see 
Amber  before  seeing  Agra,  Fatehpur  Sikri,  Delhi, 
and  the  rest  to  value  it  so  highly.  The  tinsel  look- 
ing-glasses and  plaster  rooms  at  Amber  were  weari- 
some. We  had  seen  too  many  before.  The  pavilions, 
the  baths,  and  the  gardens  seemed  small  and  con- 
tracted, and  even  the  pomegranate-trees  grew  in  pots. 
Best  of  all  in  the  palace  was  the  high  balcony,  where 


JEYPORE  355 

we  enjoyed  a  picnic  tiffin  and  a  view  out  over  the 
lake  and  the  plain  of  ruins  and  tombs.  The  elephant 
took  us  slowly  down  hill  with  the  greatest  possible 
discomfort,  the  mahout  goading  it  until  drops  of 
blood  stood  on  its  neck,  and  we  rejoiced  that  there 
was  no  more  elephant-riding  in  prospect  that  season. 
We  were  delighted  to  get  back  to  the  fantastic, 
pink-plaster  streets  of  Jeypore  and  join  in  its  the- 
atrical pageantry,  throw  wheat  to  the  pigeons  in  air, 
join  arrested  wedding  processions,  and  watch  the 
sedate  old  dancers  in  brogans  tramp  their  slow 
measures  and  sing  their  nasal  song-s.  The  street 
juggler  looped  the  torpid  python  around  his  body 
and  held  the  head  before  him  to  be  photographed, 
as  if  the  coiling  creature  were  only  a  garden-hose 
with  fangs  in  the  nozle.  The  streets  fairly  blazed 
with  color  in  the  last  red  and  yellow  rays  of  sunset ; 
brilliant  turbans  and  head-sheets  were  moving  lan- 
guidly in  every  direction  around  the  four-corners' 
fountain;  pigeons  whirled  in  clouds  and  trotted  be- 
side us  by  hundreds;  flocks  of  noisy  crows  flew  to 
settle  for  the  night  in  trees  just  outside  the  city  wall ; 
and  when  we  reluctantly  drove  away  the  frost-haze 
was  silvered  by  moonlight,  and  Jeypore  remains  a 
brilliant  picture — too  spectacular  and  color-satisfy- 
ing to  be  real,  too  good  to  be  true,  a  certain  feeling 
possessing  one  that  the  scenery  was  rolled  up  that 
night  and  the  troupe  went  home  or  on  to  the  next 
town.  In  the  cold  hotel  we  slowly  congealed,  enthu- 
siasm declined,  and  we  joyfully  quoted  Lord  Cur- 
zon's  opinion:  "The  rose-red  city  over  which  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold  has  poured  the  copious  cataract  of  a 

19 


356  WINTER  INDIA 

truly  Telegraphese  vocabulary,  struck  me  when  I 
was  in  India  as  a  pretentious  plaster  fraud."  In 
memory  one  reverts  to  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  view, 
sees  only  the  fantastic  pink  palace  fronts,  the  bril- 
liant turbans,  the  wedding  processions,  and  the  jew- 
eled women  switching  their  red  and  yellow  skirts  in 
the  sunshine ;  and  of  all  places  in  India,  I  should  like 
best  to  be  put  down  for  an  hour  in  the  streets  of 
Jeypore,  when  the  midwinter  sun  is  shining,  the 
opium-market  is  lively,  and  the  astrologers  have 
declared  it  a  propitious  day  for  weddings. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

MOUNT   ABU    AND   AIIMEDABAD 

^E  were  jolted  from  midnight  until  the 
next  noon,  to  cover  the  two  hundred 
and  seventy-four  miles  of  railway  be- 
tween Jeypore  and  Abu  Roads,  our 
bearer  standing  in  his  crowded  car  for 
all  but  three  hours  of  that  time.  At  Abu  Roads 
we  met  again  the  long-tongued  Anglo-Indian  "jinny 
rickshaw."  There  were  six  coolies  to  each  cart; 
two  leaned  against  the  cross-beam  of  the  ridicu- 
lously long  tongue  as  they  slowly  walked;  two 
more  leaned  against  the  back  of  the  vehicle;  and 
the  two  reliefs  rested  as  they  lounged  along  the  flat 
country  road ;  all  six  dragging  their  clumsy  slioes  in 
the  dust  and  enveloping  us  in  a  cloud  for  the  six 
miles  of  level  carriage-road.  Running  was  not  in 
their  thoughts  as,  with  frequent  rests,  they  slowly 
crossed  the  plain  and,  at  a  snail's  pace,  crawled  up 
the  easy  grades  of  the  mountain  road.  Even  ox- 
teams  overtook  us.  We  passed  only  the  wretched 
hovels  of  the  people,  mere  pig-sties  of  bamboo  and 
mud  beneath  bamboo-trees,  each  with  its  banana- 
patch,  and  our  shouting  coolies  made  all  who  came 
to  the  doors  to  stare,  kneel  and  salute  us.    We  rested 

357 


358  WINTER  INDIA 

once  by  a  tragic  black  pool  shaded  by  two  enormous 
banian-trees,  where  Scotch  whisky  and  soda  was  in- 
sistently offered  us  by  a  black  keeper  of  a  refresh- 
ment booth.  The  temple  domes  on  the  mountain-top 
showed  in  sky-line ;  the  golden  plain  shimmered  far 
below  US;  and  in  six  and  a  half  hours  we  accom- 
plished the  sixteen  miles.  We  dragged  along  beside 
a  lake  in  the  late  sunset  as  bullock-carts  filled  with 
rosy  English  children  came  from  a  picnic.  There 
were  rice-fields  on  the  mountain  top,  flooded  by 
primitive  Persian  water-wheels,  wonderfully  green 
and  thriving  crops,  and  groups  of  palms  in  every 
vista.  Violets  bloomed  by  the  dak  bangla's  door- 
steps, where  a  fine  old  Idiansamah  greeted  us  and 
gave  us  tea  with  Goanese  guava  jelly  on  crisp  toast 
in  a  warm  room. 

Mount  Abu  is  the  headquarters  of  the  resident 
who  rules  the  seventeen  Rajput  principalities,  and 
from  him  we  secured  a  permit  to  visit  the  Jain  tem- 
ples. The  Jains  are  the  last  of  the  Buddhists  left 
in  India  and  their  creed  is  still  closely  akin  to  that 
Gautama  devised  for  his  people,  although  their  ob- 
servance of  caste  is  contrary  to  the  fundamental 
principle  of  Buddhism.  A  Rajput  officer  in  Euro- 
pean coat,  draped  dhotee,  and  a  sword  as  his  badge 
of  race  and  rank,  with  a  red-coated  chuprassy 
from  the  Residency,  escorted  us  the  next  morning 
the  two  miles  to  the  Dilwarra  shrines.  The  guard 
at  the  temple  gate  hurriedly  wound  himself  into 
his  kamarband,  set  his  turban  straight,  and,  shoul- 
dering his  carbine,  paced  the  flags  energetically 
while  we  waited  for  the  permits  to  be  examined. 


MOUNT  ABU  AND  AHMEDABAD      361 

Another  red  coat  and  yellow  turban  came,  and  the 
three  guided  us  around  the  two  Jain  temples,  which 
are  the  most  elaborately  carved  and  decorated 
shrines  in  India.  They  were  built  in  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries,  and  the  marble  was  brought 
from  quarries  twelve  miles  away  and  carved  to  f rost- 
and  lace-like  fineness. 

Marble  cloisters  whose  alcove  chapels  contain 
seated  images  of  the  tirthankars,  or  Jain  saints,  sur- 
round an  inner  court  holding  the  elaborately  con- 
structed and  decorated  central  shrine  and  altar. 
One  marvels  as  much  at  the  perfect  preservation 
as  at  the  minute,  lavish  ornamentation;  and  for 
the  preservation  the  Rajputs  have  to  thank  the  Eng- 
lish. In  the  central  domical  halls  of  both  temples 
the  columns,  arches,  struts,  trusses,  beams,  central 
panels,  and  altar-fronts  are  covered  with  myriads  of 
tiny  figures  and  bands  of  conventional  ornament  in 
full  and  low  relief,  a  marble  filigree-work  surpass- 
ing anything  to  be  seen  elsewhere.  Scenes  from  the 
lives  of  the  saints  frame  the  niches  holding  their 
images;  v/onderful  rosettes  and  pendentives  enrich 
the  ceilings;  and  saints  by  the  meter  band  the  col- 
umns and  walls  until  one  feels  hypnotized  by  the 
myriad  repetitions.  Leaf  forms  suggest  the  Greek 
acanthus,  while  the  Buddhist  swastika,  elephant,  lo- 
tus, and  Hansa  goose  appear,  and  a  whole  grammar 
of  Indian  ornament  can  be  traced  in  those  halls, 
where  the  white  saints  sit  absorbed  in  eternal  medi- 
tation. At  the  first  temple  fifty-five  saints  sit  in 
as  many  cells  around  the  court,  and  a  coolie  was 
dusting  the  images  as  indifferently  as  if  they  were 


362  WINTER  INDIA 

but  common  furniture,  flicking  at  them  with  a  doubt- 
ful rag,  and  whacking  them  again  in  a  way  to  make 
one  wonder  what  a  European  could  do  to  shock  re- 
ligious sentiment  and  make  the  Jains  hedge  a  visitor 's 
entrance  with  permits  and  guards.  It  is  expressly 
enjoined  that  Europeans  shall  remove  their  hats  and 
not  step  on  the  platforms  of  the  shrines  or  within 
the  image-cells. 

The  second  temple  is  the  older  one  and  simpler  in 
some  respects ;  but  the  pillared  hall  of  the  main 
shrine  is  loftier,  its  serpentine  brackets  and  struts 
even  more  lavishly  ornamented,  its  dome  and  pen- 
dentives  more  exquisite.  We  went  back  and  won- 
dered again  at  all  the  extravagance  of  carving  in 
the  first  temple.  Certainly  these  two  Jain  shrines 
are  the  climax  of  Indian  decoration  and  ornamental 
construction,  miracles  and  masterpieces  of  patient 
art. 

The  night  on  the  frosty  mountain  top  aggravated 
colds  dating  back  to  the  wet  felt  slippers  at  Amrit- 
sar  temple,  and  it  was  a  delight  to  get  down  to 
Abu  Roads  and  the  dry,  hot  plain  again.  The  sta- 
tion-master let  us  go  at  once  to  the  waiting  car 
that  was  attached  to  the  train  in  the  middle  of  the 
night.  The  down  mail  jolted  us  into  Ahmedabad 
before  daylight,  where  another  kind  station-master 
let  us  remain  in  the  shunted  car  until  breakfast-time. 
At  the  end  of  the  station  platform  an  ornamental 
minaret  rose  above  the  trees,  first  harbinger  of  the 
day  of  architectural  feasts.  Had  Ahmedabad  not 
been  one  of  the  exceptionally  unique  and  interesting 
cities  of  India,  I  could  not  have  maintained  enthu- 


MOUNT  ABU  AND  AUMEDABAD      363 

siasm  to  explore  its  mosques  while  burning  with  the 
fever  of  influenza.  The  air  was  soft  and  warm  as 
late  spring  in  the  earliest  morning,  and  the  sun  had 
a  desert  scorch  at  noon  at  that  end  of  February. 
By  dreary  lanes  and  ruined  gates  in  broken  walls,  we 
reached  the  beautiful  mosques  whose  carved  sand- 
stone columns  and  walls  recall  those  of  Fatehpur 
Sikri.  Rani  Sipri's  mosque,  the  Queen's  mosque, 
the  tombs  of  Mohammed  Chisti  and  Muhafiz  Khan 
each  seemed  the  perfection  of  beauty  in  line  and 
carved  ornament,  the  minarets,  arches,  and  walls  cov- 
ered with  such  a  wealth  of  arabesques  and  traceries 
as  vied  wdth  the  white  wonders  on  Mount  Abu.  At 
the  Queen's  mosque  a  band  of  Moslems  bore  in  a 
sheeted  figure  bound  to  a  charpoy  covered  with  a 
rich  cloth  and  garlands  of  marigolds.  All  the 
mourners  bathed  at  the  tank,  united  in  standing 
prayer,  lifted  the  charpoy,  and  bore  it  off  to  the 
graveyard. 

We  drove  into  a  dreary,  rubbish-strewn  common, 
and,  through  a  breach  in  an  old  wall,  reached  the 
court  behind  Sidi  Said's  desecrated  mosque  of  the 
palace  to  look  from  the  outside  upon  the  two  famous 
tracery  windows,  best  known  and  most  beautiful 
work  of  that  kind  in  India.  Nothing  in  marble  tra- 
ceries elsewhere  approaches  them.  We  drove  to 
Hathi  Singh's  Jain  temple,  whose  saints  in  niches 
and  elaborately  carved  ornament  in  white  marble 
are  in  the  style  of  the  Mount  Abu  shrines,  and  then 
we  went  to  see  the  great  tanks  and  green  wells  sur- 
rounded by  marble  galleries,  where  luxury-loving 
rulers  sought  coolness  during  the  great  heat. 


364  WINTER  INDIA 

The  streets  of  Alunedabad  are  dazzling  and  ka- 
leidoscopic to  one  beginning  his  India  at  Bombay; 
but  Ahmedabad,  once  ''the  handsomest  town  in 
Hindustan,  perhaps  in  all  the  world,"  is  a  dull 
second  after  Jeypore.  There  were  new  models  in 
turbans  to  be  seen,  and  the  picturesque  pigeon-cotes 
erected  by  humane  Jains  are  other  novelties  peculiar 
to  this  one  city;  for  the  Jains  observe  the  strictest 
Buddhist  tenets  against  destroying  life,  provide 
refuges  and  hospitals  for  animals,  strain  all  the 
water  they  use,  and  step  aside  to  spare  the  lowliest 
insect. 

The  vegetable,  brass,  and  pottery  bazaars,  strung 
down  the  middle  of  a  wide  street,  were  centers  of  life 
and  uproar;  but  the  local  guide  bore  us  off  to  the 
Avorkshop  of  a  carpet-weaver,— poor  show  after  Am- 
ritsar,  Lahore,  and  Agra's  factories,— and  to  the 
gate  of  the  chief  wood-carver  who  executes  American 
orders  for  interior  decorations.  There  was  holiday 
or  bankruptcy  on  for  that  day,  but  much  search- 
ing and  pounding  on  mute  doors  at  last  produced 
a  lank  Moslem  with  a  key,  who  opened  a  great  room 
containing  a  table,  a  book  of  designs,  and  four  carved 
chairs,  tagged  with  price-marks  five  times  those  of 
the  Lahore  Art  School.  We  searched  the  brass  ba- 
zaars and  all  the  brass-shops  for  the  pierced  screens 
that  a  winter-touring  M.  P.  lauds  as  a  local  specialty. 
In  clouds  of  warm  dust  we  drove  here  and  there, 
hunting  the  famous  kincob-shops,  walking  through 
archways  to  alleys  and  ill-smelling  courts  and  cul- 
de-sacs,  where  small  dealers  had  bundles  of  creased 
samples  of  tawdry,  wall-papery  brocades.     Others 


MOUNT  ABU  AND  AHMEDABAD      367 

shook  squares  of  tinsel ly  stuffs  from  upper  windows, 
and  shouted,  "Fifteen  rupees!"  for  each  damaged 
remnant.  The  smells  of  those  byways  were  invita- 
tion to  and  promise  of  any  pestilence,  and  in  one 
damp,  fetid  corner  that  we  retreated  from  abruptly 
even  the  glib  guide  seemed  to  smell  a  thing  or  two. 
* '  Phew !  the  drains !  the  drains !  What  a  very  bad 
municipal!"  and  we  never  wondered  that  the  native 
states  show  such  a  great  decrease  of  population  dur- 
ing the  last  five  years  of  the  century,  while  the 
bubonic  plague  raged. 

At  the  busy  clothes  bazaar,  tinsel  caps  and  orange 
jackets  for  little  boys  were  the  bargains  of  the  day 
that  crowds  were  competing  for,  and  more  and  more 
peddlers  were  opening  rainbow  packs  and  preparing 
for  an  evening  bazaar.  We  had  done  our  duty  by 
the  sights  and  shows  of  Ahmedabad ;  we  had  had  our 
fill  of  local  color  and  smells ;  and  we  drove  back  to 
rest  at  the  comfortable  station.  Our  guide  and  the 
bearer  were  bewildered,  and  the  latter  tearful  at 
our  wasting  two  hours  on  foot  in  the  bazaar,  and 
losing  that  much  time  in  the  use  of  the  horses  taken 
at  so  much  for  all  day.  ' '  But,  memsahib, ' '  he  whim- 
pered, ''if  you  pay  six  rupees  a  day  for  a  carriage, 
you  must  use  all  day.  You  must  see  all.  There  are 
many  nice  tombs  yet.  You  must  see  more.  You 
must  not  stop  now.  These  horses  just  stand  around, 
while  you  walk  two  hours,  and  now  you  stop  for 
tea,  and  no  more  use.    It  is  too  expenseful. " 

When  the  Bombay  mail  rumbled  in,  we  found  our 
reserved  compartment,  spread  our  razais,  and  lay 
down,  and  all  at  once  had  a  strange,  dizzy,  floating 


368  WINTER  INDIA 

sensation,  as  if  hypnotized  or  drugged.  The  train 
was  moving,  but  without  jar,  jolt,  or  thumps.  The 
carriage  rolled  smoothly,  as  if  on  springs,  and  we 
sat  up  and  stared  out  and  at  each  other  to  fathom 
the  mystery.  At  last,  on  our  seventeenth  night,  and 
after  many  days  spent  on  Indian  railway  trains,  we 
had  met  the  mythical  "bogie-car"!  The  car-spring 
was  a  reality. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE    CAVES   OP    ELLORA    AND    KARLI 

iE  touched  the  Western  world  at  Bom- 
bay only  for  a  day,  and  quickly  took 
train  again,  spreading  our  razais  for 
an  all-night  ride  of  one  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  miles  to  Nandgaon.  No 
bogie-car,  no  sort  of  spring  or  buffer,  softened 
the  thumps  of  the  hard-cushioned  couches,  and  the 
occupant  of  the  upper  berth,  feeling  a  draft  when 
she  had  climbed  to  her  swinging  shelf,  unhooded 
the  lamp  and  found  that  the  side  wall  of  the  car 
consisted  of  wire  netting  only  in  its  upper  portion. 
Her  bedding  was  removed  to  the  floor,  and  as  there 
was  no  way  to  check  this  generous  ventilation,  chill 
drafts  swept  the  compartment  as  the  train  ran 
through  damp  fields  and  dark  spaces,  and  the  dust 
of  the  road-bed  covered  us  an  inch  deep  by  morning. 
The  feeble  lamp  flickered  out  soon  after  midnight, 
and  it  took  vigorous  shouting  at  two  dark  stations 
before  we  could  get  the  station-master  and  his  note- 
book to  investigate,  report,  and  reilluminate  with  a 
broken-down  lamp  that  went  out  as  soon  as  we  left 
his  station.  As  everywhere  in  India,  there  were 
steaming  tea-kettles  on  the  platforms  and  cups  of  tea 

360 


370  WINTER  INDIA 

at  one's  window  at  every  halt;  and  we  thawed  and 
packed  in  the  darkness  in  time  to  dismount  at  Nand- 
gaon  at  six  o'clock.  More  tea,  with  some  toast  and 
bananas,  constituted  breakfast,  and  we  got  away  in 
two  small  tongas,  each  with  a  pair  of  tiny,  galloping 
ponies.  It  was  not  the  tonga  of  the  Simla  road,  but 
the  original  native  vehicle  which  has  lent  its  name  to 
everything  on  wheels.  "The  tonga  is  a  low,  two- 
wheeled,  dachshund  of  a  cart,  with  the  build  of  a 
gun-carriage,"  is  Steevens's  happy  description  of  it. 
The  road  led  across  an  uninteresting,  level,  unfenced, 
dry  plain,  with  detached  hills  showing  on  the  hori- 
zon. We  stopped  every  seven  miles  to  change  ponies, 
and  we  changed  tongas,  visited  back  and  forth  from 
one  cart  to  the  other,  rode  backward  as  the  passen- 
ger is  supposed  to  ride,  sat  on  the  front  seat  with  the 
driver,  and  did  everything  to  beguile  the  tedium  and 
discomfort  of  that  all-day  ride  of  fifty-six  miles. 
The  sun  grew  warmer,  and  it  was  almost  hot  at  noon, 
the  country  more  and  more  uninteresting,  with  few 
villages,  few  travelers,  and  no  incidents  to  distract 
us  after  an  indifferent  tiffin  at  a  way-station.  At 
three  in  the  afternoon,  we  reached  the  foot  of  the 
ghat  in  whose  perpendicular  face  the  great  cave- 
temples  have  been  excavated.  The  rock-cut  temples 
at  Mahabalipur  had  been  but  preparation  for  the 
great  series  of  caves  at  Ellora,  where  the  face  of  a 
steep  hillside  has  been  burrowed  into,  great  cham- 
bers hollowed  out,  and  porticoes,  galleries,  staircases, 
and  passages  cut  in  the  solid  rock  and  covered  with 
splendid  bas-relief  sculpture  on  the  most  elaborate 
scale.     The  line  of  rock-temples  extends  for  a  mile 


UOCK-CUT  TEill'Li;.   .\  1'   KI.LOllA. 


THE  OAVES  OF  ELLORA  AND   KARLI  373 

and  a  quarter  along  the  front  of  the  clift*,  Buddhists, 
Jains,  and  Brahmaus  having  in  turn  cut  their 
shrines  in  the  everlasting  hills,  accomplishing  this 
stupendous  work  in  the  sixth,  eighth,  and  later  cen- 
turies. For  more  than  two  hours  we  rambled  along 
the  face  of  the  cliifs,  in  and  out,  up  and  down  the 
different  stages  and  galleries  of  the  thirty-four  rock- 
cut  shrines ;  and,  fatigued  as  we  were,  hastened  with 
breathless  interest  from  one  to  another  of  the  many 
surprises. 

All  that  we  had  seen  of  roek-sculptures  and  mono- 
lith temples  elsewhere  paled  before  this  great  dis- 
play, and  all  the  monuments  of  patient  toil  and  in- 
finite labor  in  the  world  seemed  nothing  compared 
to  the  Kailas  at  Ellora.  First,  the  great  sunken 
court,  measuring  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  by  two 
hundred  and  seventy-six  feet,  was  hewn  out  of  the 
solid  trap-rock  of  the  hillside,  leaving  the  rock  mass 
of  the  temple  wholly  detached  in  a  cloistered  court 
like  a  colossal  boulder,  save  as  a  rock  bridge  once 
connected  the  upper  story  of  the  temple  with  the 
upper  row  of  galleried  chambers  surrounding  three 
sides  of  the  court.  One  enters  from  the  plain  by 
an  ornamental  gateway  in  the  cliff  front,  a  rock 
screen  closing  the  front  of  the  court.  Colossal  ele- 
phants and  lamp-posts  stand  on  either  side  of  the 
open  mandapam,  or  pavilion,  containing  the  sacred 
bull;  and  beyond  rises  the  monolithic  Dravidian 
temple  to  Shiva,  ninety  feet  in  height,  hollowed  into 
vestibule,  chamber,  and  image-cells,  all  lavishly 
carved.  Time  and  earthquakes  have  weathered  and 
broken  away  bits  of  the  great  monument,  and  Mos- 


374  WINTER   INDIA 

lem  zealots  strove  to  destroy  the  carved  figures,  but 
one  hardly  notes  these  defects  in  presence  of  this 
greatest  wonder  of  the  Indian  world,  absolutely 
unique  among  architectural  monuments.  Patches 
of  ocher  and  shreds  of  flower  garlands  remained 
from  the  last  festival,  the  only  suggestion  of  human 
touch  or  occupancy.  One  seemed  to  feel  the  pres- 
ence of  magic  forces  there,  as  if  the  Kailas  had  been 
turned  to  stone  by  some  enchantment.  It  dazed  one 
to  consider  that  one  mind  could  have  conceived  such 
a  stupendous  monument  as  this  ex-voto  of  an 
eighth-century  raja — his  material  expression  of  grat- 
itude at  his  restoration  to  health  by  the  neighboring 
springs. 

The  three-story  Brahmanical  temples  were  the  next 
most  amazing  spectacle :  gallery  over  gallery  hewn 
in  the  cliff  front  and  connected  by  curious  arched 
passages  and  tunnels  of  later  date,  as  in  the  Do 
Tal  (two-story)  and  the  Tin  Tal  (three-story)  tem- 
ples. The  Das  Avatar's  main  hall  is  cut  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-three  feet  into  the  rock,  forty-six 
massive  pillars  connecting  the  roof  and  floor.  One 
Buddhist  cave  with  a  double  gallery  in  the  screen 
front,  and  an  upper  window  opening  to  the  plain, 
has  a  ribbed  roof,  and  from  so  closely  following  the 
lines  of  the  early  chaitya  halls  of  wooden  construc- 
tion, it  is  known  as  the  Carpenter's  Cave,  There  is  a 
carved  dagoba  in  the  apse  of  its  long  hall,  where  the 
seated  figure  of  Buddha  and  attendant  figures  in 
air  are  in  the  spirit  of  the  best  period  of  Buddhist 
art.  There  are  storied  viharas  or  monasteries  near 
it,  which,  like  this  great  chaitya,  follow  closely  the 


THE  CAVES  OF  ELLUKA  AND  KARLI    375 

forms  of  wooden  construction.  The  Dehwarra,  ad- 
joining the  Carpenter's  Cave,  measures  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  by  seventy  feet,  two  rows  of  massive 
rock  pillars  joining-  the  floor  and  roof.  In  the  Jain 
caves  beyond,  cross-legged  tirthankars  sit  in  medi- 
tation in  carved  cells,  archaic  prototypes  of  the  fairy 
marble  alcoves  on  Mount  Abu. 

Sated  with  wonders,  we  were  carried  up  the  steep 
hill  to  the  Nizam's  dak  bangla,  where  brass  bed- 
steads with  wire  springs  and  double  hair  mattresses 
were  as  great  a  surprise  as  the  architectural  won- 
ders that  had  stunned  us.  With  great  considera- 
tion, we  omitted  from  the  khansamah's  menu  all 
dishes  requiring  long  preparation,  in  order  that  we 
might  dine  as  soon  as  possible  and  go  to  those  mat- 
tresses the  earlier.  At  the  end  of  two  hours  of  call- 
ing and  waiting  on  the  ''Very  well,  madam,"  we 
crossed  the  dark  lawn  to  the  cook-house  door  to 
make  a  final  demand  for  food  of  some  kind.  White 
figures  and  turbans  flitted  about  in  the  lighted  in- 
terior, making  an  admirable  picture  within  the  frame 
of  the  door,  and  we  stood  in  darkness,  silently  appre- 
ciating it,  and  wondering  if  it  would  be  attainable  by 
kodak  in  daylight.  We  saw  the  cook  strain  the  soup 
into  the  tureen  through  the  end  of  the  dish-cloth 
he  had  used  and  flung  on  his  arm  while  we  watched, 
and  then  we  cried  aloud.  Cook,  khansamah,  and 
bearer  all  leaped  aside,  soup  and  dish-rag  dropped 
to  the  floor,  and  they  retreated  to  far  corners 
of  the  cook-house  mumbling  and  wailing:  "Oh, 
memsahib!  Please,  memsahib!"  etc.  I  had  long 
revolted   at   the   taste   and   smell   of   the   ordinary 


376  WINTER    INDIA 

gray  soup  served  everywhere,  and  reckless  flights  of 
the  imagination  in  trying  to  describe  the  flavoring 
were  borne  out  by  that  scene.  A  very  meek  and 
deprecatory  khansamah  served  that  dinner  of  plain 
chops  and  potatoes  with  the  inevitable  cauliflower, 
cringing  as  he  offered  any  dish,  backing  away 
quickly  at  each  sound,  and  keeping  one  eye  fear- 
fully turned  upon  us  and  the  door  of  escape  as  he 
moved  about. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  returned  to  the  tem- 
ples, climbed  the  steps,  and  passed  through  the  rock 
screen  or  gateway  of  the  Kailas,  fearing  lest  it 
be  a  dream  of  the  night.  We  sought  vainly  for  some 
vantage-point  in  the  contracted  court  where  a  camera 
could  cover  the  whole  mass  of  the  Kailas.  From 
the  galleried  chambers  surrounding  the  court  we 
saw  the  central  temple  best,  and  by  a  pitch-dark 
stairway  we  happened  into  an  upper  chamber  where 
the  finest  bas-reliefs  at  Ellora  covered  the  walls,  and 
the  ornamental  capitals  of  the  columns  were  pierced 
and  chiseled  out  in  the  free  and  bold  designs  of 
a  wood-carver.  Even  there  the  hand  of  Alamgir 
and  his  fanatics  had  fallen,  and  the  tiny  figures  and 
the  ornaments  were  defaced.  The  caves  are  still 
places  of  pilgrimage,  and  at  the  great  festivals  of 
Shiva  crowds  troop  through  the  Kailas,  and  the  im- 
ages are  smeared  with  ocher  and  hung  with  garlands. 
The  tread  of  these  thousands  of  bare  feet  for  cen- 
turies has  given  that  peculiar,  greasy  polish  to  the 
stone  floors  that  no  other  treatment  bestows.  In  the 
rainy  season,  waterfalls  stream  over  the  front  of  the 
cliff,  the  courts  and  halls  are  flooded,  and  the  path 


THE  CAVES  OF   ELLORA  AND  KAI4L1         377 

that  runs  along  the  cliff  from  cave  to  cave  is  a  moat 
defending  the  temples  from  the  plain. 

It  was  an  ideally  fresh  and  fragrant  morning  when 
we  started  down  from  the  grassy  plateau  to  the 
plain,  but  it  grew  hot  as  the  tongas  bumped  along  the 
tedious  way.  As  we  reached  a  more  cultivated  stretch 
of  country,  sago-  and  cocoa-palms  rustled  their 
dusty  fronds  in  the  rising  breeze  that  soon  brought 
with  it  a  rain-cloud  and  a  cold  mist  that  pierced  to 
the  marrow.  The  rain  came  in  blinding  sheets, 
swept  through  the  tongas,  and  for  two  hours  trickled 
down  on  us  and  our  rolls  of  bedding.  We  arrived 
at  the  station  in  time  to  be  partially  dried  over  pans 
of  charcoal  as  we  ate  a  hurried  dinner.  The  train 
rumbled  in  toward  nine  o'clock,  and  we  rode  as  far 
as  Kalyan,  where  we  waited  from  four  to  seven 
o'clock,  when  the  Poona  train  picked  us  up.  We  had 
the  first  new  car  we  had  seen,  a  shining,  highly  var- 
nished contrast  to  the  ancient,  unswept,  unwashed 
cars  in  which  we  had  been  jolted  over  India.  Pea- 
cock-blue glass  in  the  windows  gave  an  unearthly 
look  to  the  red,  scorched  landscapes  we  rode  through 
in  ascending  the  Bhor  Ghat.  By  twenty-one  tun- 
nels and  many  loops  and  zigzags  we  rose  two  thou- 
sand feet  in  seventeen  miles,  the  train  halting  at  sev- 
eral reversing  stations,  where  the  engine  switched 
past  to  join  the  other  end  of  the  train.  We  had 
eagle  views  out  and  down  to  rocky  caiions  as  bare, 
dry,  and  roughly  sculptured  by  the  elements  as  any 
in  our  arid  regions  of  the  Southwest,  even  the  famil- 
iar cactus  of  Arizona  deserts  flourishing  in  the 
wastes  of  rock  and  sand. 

20 


378  WINTER  INDIA 

From  Lonauli  station  a  very  trim  dog-cart  car- 
ried us  through  a  model  settlement  toward  the  open 
fields.  Our  guide  to  the  caves  of  Karli  was  Dhoond 
Dhu,  a  cheerful  little  barelegged  turban  of  thirteen, 
who  spoke  good  English  with  the  chirpy  voice  of  a 
young  robin,  and  made  every  point  tell  by  the  ap- 
peal of  his  deep,  dark  eyes.  He  fought  valiantly  to 
make  a  good  bargain  for  us  with  the  chair-bearers 
at  work  in  a  cactus-strewn  field,  when  the  cart  had 
stopped  at  the  end  of  wheel  tracks  in  a  plowed 
ground.  They  were  decrepit  chairs  with  makeshift 
poles  tied  to  them — carrying-chairs  only,  as  one  de- 
crepit leg  and  then  another  fell  out  if  one  attempted 
to  sit  in  them  while  they  rested  on  the  ground.  The 
path  led  steeply  along  the  side  of  a  hill  that  became 
a  precipice  in  places,  the  chairs  creaking  and  mo- 
mently threatening  collapse.  We  remembered  our  bo- 
gus Nawab  at  Jeyporewhen  three  fraudulent  priests 
assumed  to  do  the  honors  of  the  great  Buddhist  cave 
at  Karli.  Blackened  columns  and  a  lofty  entrance 
recessed  in  the  rock  are  an  imposing  preparation  for 
the  great  chaitya  hall,  a  chamber  one  hundred  and 
twenty-four  feet  long,  forty-two  feet  wide,  and 
forty-six  feet  high.  A  row  of  ornamental  columns 
rises  on  either  side  to  the  ribbed  teak  roof,  and  at 
the  far  end,  in  the  nave,  a  massive  dagoba,  despoiled 
of  its  bas-reliefs,  images,  and  ornaments,  is  claimed 
as  their  sacred  emblem  by  the  Shivaites  who  have 
so  long  held  the  place.  Dating  from  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era  or  earlier,  this  cave  shows  the 
first  and  purest  form  of  Buddhist  temples,  and  is 
the  largest  and  finest  cave-temple  of  its  kind  in  India. 


THE  CAVES  OF   ELLORA  AND  KARLI         381 

Steps  lead  to  adjoining  viharas,  three-story  caves 
where  the  square  cells  with  sculptured  walls  allowed 
room  only  for  the  stone  shelf  or  string-bed  of  the 
anchorite. 

Workmen  dawdled  with  pick  and  crowbar,  clear- 
ing away  rubbish  at  the  entrance,  and  the  dis- 
comfited priests  lounged  there,  chatting,  when  we 
came  back  from  the  viharas.  Black  rain-clouds  were 
rolling  up,  and  we  started  down  the  rocky  path, 
leaving  Dhoond  Dhu  to  stir  up  and  drive  the  chair- 
coolies.  Then  a  great  cry  arose  as  priests,  workmen, 
and  coolies  ran  howling :  * '  Prissint !  Prissint !  Mem- 
sahib!"  rubbing  their  itching  palms  across  their 
faces  and  extending  them  beseechingly.  They 
shoved  one  another  aside,  wrangled  fiercely,  and 
seemed  ready  to  do  violence  to  the  small  guide.  It 
was  not  the  place  in  which  to  have  an  argument  with 
even  one  bad  man,  and  the  dozen  big  beggars  could 
easily  have  pitched  us  over  the  precipice,  or  shut 
us  up  in  farther  caves,  without  killing,  until  we 
were  ready  to  pay  ransom.  But  one  has  such  con- 
tempt for  the  Hindu  that  fear  or  the  possibility 
of  danger  never  suggested  itself  until  we  were  well 
away  and  thought  what  that  number  of  Afghans  or 
Macedonians  might  have  done.  To  stop  the  clatter 
and  warn  off  the  bogus  priest  who  had  snatched 
Dhoond  Dhu  roughly  by  the  shoulder,  I  lifted  my 
umbrella  and  took  but  one  step  forward,  when  the 
pack  ran  back  to  the  cave  entrance,  and  the  chair- 
coolies  threw  themselves  flat  and  crawled  to  their 
poles,  imploring  mercy.  We  had  to  lean  against  the 
rock  wall  while  we  laughed  at  the  farcical  denoue- 


382  WINTER  INDIA 

ment,  Dhoond  Dhu  shaking  the  last  turban  fold  loose 
with  his  child-like  spasms  of  glee. 

On  reaching  Lonauli  early  in  the  afternoon,  we 
had  asked  the  station-master  to  have  a  compartment 
reserved  on  the  midnight  train  to  Bombay.  "Cer- 
tingly,  memsahib,  certingly.  I  will  wire  to  Poona." 
At  six  o'clock  we  had  no  answer— because  no  wire 
had  been  sent.  At  seven  the  condition  contin- 
ued, the  station-master  was  still  absent,  and  the 
assistant  would  not  send  a  telegram  "because  there 
iss  no  rule  for  thatt."  We  sent  a  telegram  and 
asked  the  assistant  to  sell  us  the  tickets  then,  that 
we  might  sleep  in  the  waiting-room  until  the  train 
came  at  five  minutes  after  midnight.  *'No,  no," 
said  the  babu ;  ''the  12:05  iss  one  of  to-morrow's 
trains.  I  cannot  sell  you  ticket  now  and  mix  my 
accounts  for  two  daj^s  so  terribly.  I  should  lose  some 
money,  and  I  am  poor  man." 

It  was  a  hot,  close  night,  and  the  scorching  air 
came  in  waves  from  the  bare  cliffs  of  the  Bhor  Ghat 
as  the  train  curved  and  reversed  and  crept  from  one 
twinkling  light  and  group  of  lights  to  another  down 
the  two  thousand  feet  to  the  plain.  With  our  ar- 
rival at  Bombay  at  six  in  the  morning,  we  had  spent 
our  twentieth  night  on  Indian  railway  trains  in 
three  months  of  travel,  in  that  first  winter;  and 
gladly  we  bade  farewell  to  the  red  razais. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


BOMBAY 


FTER  two  months  '' up-country, "  Bom- 
bay seemed  a  European  city,  a  West- 
ern metropolis;  and  that  hotel  which 
strikes  such  dismay  and  disgust  to  the 
heart  of  the  tourist  coming  from  Eu- 
rope seemed  to  us  a  very  palace  of  comfort;  that 
hotel  whose  corridors  are  strewn  with  servants  and 
their  rolls  of  bedding,  their  pots,  pipes,  and  traps, — 
servants  who  gabble  and  smoke,  eat  and  sleep, 
dress  and  undress,  each  before  his  employer's  door, 
as  unconcernedly  as  in  their  own  serais;  that  hotel 
of  hard  and  hillocky  beds,  which  all  one's  winter  ac- 
cumulation of  razais  cannot  soften ;  that  hotel  whose 
partition  walls  stop  two  feet  from  the  ceiling,  where 
every  room  has  an  outer  balcony  and  an  inner 
dark  bath-room  whose  primitive  plumbing  puts  the 
American  in  fear  for  his  life.  By  contrast  with 
up-country  hotels  it  was  the  home  of  comfort,  and 
at  last  we  understood  how  people  could  talk  of  the 
*' luxury  of  Indian  travel."  All  things  are  com- 
parative, and  one's  ideas  of  splendor  depend  on  what 
has  gone  before.  Even  the  Madras  and  Calcutta 
hotels  would  have  seemed  splendid  after  a  round 
of  inns  and  banglas. 

-1  383 


384  WINTER  INDLA. 

The  soft,  sea  air,  the  warm  days  and  mild  nights 
were  balm  to  us,  after  the  dry  scorch  and  frostbites 
up-country.  The  sight  of  Gothic  architecture  was 
a  revelation  after  having  reached  the  edge  of  satiety 
among  Hindu,  Jain,  Mogul,  Pathan,  and  Dravidian 
masterpieces.  Street-cars,  European  shop-windows 
and  houses  were  objects  of  interest;  and  to  drive 
over  sprinkled  roads  beside  the  soft-sounding  sea, 
where  bands  played  and  fashion  walked;  to  drink 
tea  on  club-house  porches, —  all  this  was  too  exciting. 

We  were  invited  to  a  Parsi  wedding  on  our  first 
day,  and  drove  across  the  native  city,  around  the 
curve  of  the  Back  Bay,  and  up  the  slopes  of  Mala- 
bar Hill  to  the  villa  of  the  bride's  family.  A  pro- 
cession of  Parsi  ladies,  wrapped  in  saris  of  delicate 
silks,  and  preceded  by  a  band,  entered  the  gates  be- 
fore us  and  joined  the  group  of  Parsi  women  in  gold- 
bordered  saris  who  made  the  drawing-room  blaze 
with  their  jewels.  The  bride  was  quiet  and  sub- 
dued, the  groom  self-possessed  to  the  point  of  flip- 
pancy when  he  came  in  from  the  assemblage  of 
Parsi  men  in  the  garden,  all  attired  in  white  cere- 
monial dress  and  queer  black  hats.  Bands  played, 
and  the  ceremony  by  the  priest  was  very  long  and 
full  of  symbolism.  The  bride,  at  one  point,  held 
a  cocoanut  and  clasped  the  hand  of  the  groom,  while 
the  priest  delivered  a  long  exhortation  and  showered 
them  with  rice,  fruit,  and  flowers.  The  bride  was 
invested  with  the  jeweled  necklaces  and  other  gifts 
of  the  groom,  sprinkled  with  rose-water,  and  touched 
with  attar  of  roses  in  the  strangely  mixed  Parsi  and 
Hindu  ceremony  that  has  come  about  during  the 


BOMBAY  385 

long  residence  of  the  fire-worshiping  Parsis  in  In- 
dia. The  conventional  menu  of  a  London  wedding 
breakfast,  with  champagne  and  ices,  was  served  to  the 
company  of  Anglo-Indian  officials,  foreign  consuls 
and  merchants,  a  Portuguese  bishop,  and  some  Jap- 
anese naval  officers  and  American  visitors.  The 
Parsi  ladies  and  children  were  served  in  the  large 
marquees  on  the  lawn,  where  ceremonial  dishes  were 
added  to  the  foreign  dainties.  Each  had  a  palm- 
leaf  for  a  plate,  and  a  vegetarian  repast  was  par- 
taken of  without  knives  or  forks.  Each  visitor  was 
garlanded  with  tuberoses  and  sprinkled  with  rose- 
water  when  he  left,  but  the  gilded  pan,  or  betel-nut 
part  of  Hindu  ceremony,  was  omitted. 

A  few  days  later  we  attended  a  second  Parsi  wed- 
ding, where  still  more  of  the  old  ceremonial  was 
observed.  There  was  the  same  garden  company  of 
men  in  white  ceremonial  dress,  and  a  drawing-room 
full  of  Parsi  ladies  covered  with  jewels  and  draped 
in  silks  of  every  delicate  color.  The  bride  seemed 
not  to  like  the  way  in  which  her  veil  was  pulled  and 
rumpled  by  clumsy  hands,  and  sweetifieats  thrust 
in  her  mouth,  and  with  some  emphasis  unwound  her 
sari  herself  and  wrapped  around  her  the  silver- 
bordered  one  given  by  the  groom's  mother.  The 
bride  and  groom  sat  in  chairs  facing  each  other, 
and  the  priest  wound  around  and  bound  them  to- 
gether with  the  symbolical  white  cord,  and  then 
bound  them  further  with  the  groom's  kamarband. 
A  veil  was  held  between  them  at  the  next  stage,  and 
finally  they  ate  rice  from  the  same  dish,  the  groom 
feeding  the  bride  with  his  fingers.     There  was   a 


386  WINTER  INDIA 

pantomime  of  her  washing  the  groom's  feet  with 
milk,  and  his  purse  was  given  the  bride,  that  she 
might  spend  it  on  a  feast  for  the  poor.  The  ceremony- 
was  full  of  meaning  and  deep  significance  to  the 
beautiful,  dark-eyed  Parsi  women  and  to  the  serious, 
priestly  looking  men,  but  it  would  take  many  pages 
to  convey  the  full  meaning  of  the  customs  brought 
from  Persia  so  many  centuries  ago. 

There  were  stock  sights  to  be  seen  in  Bombay, 
and  we  took  the  red  Murray  book  and  did  them ; 
but  it  was  not  exciting  after  the  up-country  sights 
and  people.  First,  to  the  twin  Towers  of  Silence, 
with  the  friezes  of  living  vultures  on  their  cornices, 
where  the  Parsis,  who  do  not  believe  in  defiling  the 
earth,  expose  the  bodies  of  their  dead  to  the  elements 
and  the  birds  of  the  air.  Nothing  could  be  more 
gruesome  and  repellent  than  the  rows  of  huge,  mo- 
tionless birds  awaiting  their  prey.  There  were  chill, 
sepulchral  halls  where  ceremonies  are  held  by  the 
mourners,  and  from  the  parapet  of  the  high  garden 
one  has  a  fine  view  down  over  the  Back  Bay  and  the 
city,  and  across  the  harbor  to  the  mainland  shores. 

In  all  the  many  accounts  I  have  read  of  these 
Towers  of  Silence,  the  narrators  always  looked  down 
the  winding  road  and  saw  a  procession  of  white- 
clad  mourners  approaching  with  a  body,  and  grue- 
somely  told  how  the  vultures  saw  it  too,  and  flapped 
their  wings.  "We  looked  and  looked  in  vain,  the 
first  travelers  to  miss  that  regulation  spectacle. 
AVhen  we  boasted  our  exemption  to  a  resident  of 
Bombay,  he  said  wearily:  "But  of  course  you  will 
go  home  and  say  you  saw  a  funeral  winding  up. 


BOMBAY  389 

They  all  do.  Four  travelers  whom  I  had  taken 
there  have  published  minute  and  thrilling  accounts 
of  how  the  procession  wound  up  and  up,  and  how 
the  vultures  flapped  their  wings,  although  I  had  seen 
nothing  of  the  kind." 

Guide-book  in  hand,  and  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's 
caves  of  Elephanta  fresh  in  mind,  we  rose  with  the 
dawn  one  morning  and  sped  away  by  steam-launch 
across  the  harbor  to  the  cave-temples  of  Shiva  that 
date  before  the  twelfth  century.  We  landed  at 
a  pier  of  detached  concrete  blocks,  and  made  our 
way  by  leaps  to  land,  where  the  old  sergeant  who 
guards  the  place  described  every  temple,  every  bas- 
relief,  every  group  and  image,  so  minutely  that  we 
ought  never  to  forget  a  detail  of  those  rock-sculp- 
tures, many  of  them  of  such  beauty  that  we  echoed 
the  sergeant's  anger  at  the  Portuguese  for  firing 
cannon  into  the  caves  to  destroy  the  idolatrous  work. 
We  tiptoed  here  and  there,  kept  away  from  the 
darker  corners,  looked  suspiciously  at  every  rock  and 
bush  and  tuft  of  grass,  remembering  Sir  Edwin 
Arnold's  tales  of  the  deadly  cobras  on  Elephanta; 
but  the  sergeant  insisted  that  there  were  no  snakes, 
that  he  had  never  seen  one.  It  only  remained  for 
him  to  tell  us,  as  he  did,  that  he  never  had  fever,  for 
our  last  illusion  to  vanish.  If  we  were  not  to  be 
bitten  by  cobras  and  filled  with  fever  germs  by 
visiting  Elephanta,  what  more  was  it  than  a  plea- 
sure excursion  and  boating  picnic?  What  glory  in 
daring  it  ?  What  credit  for  anything  more  than  one 
morning's  hire  of  a  steam-launch?  We  did  the  mu- 
seum, the  art  school,  the  hospital  for  animals,  the 


390  WINTER  INDIA 

markets,  and  the  serais  where  Mohammedan  pilgrims 
stop  on  their  way  to  and  from  Mecca.  At  the  large 
serai  we  met  the  three  tuneful  Bokhara  beggars  we 
had  seen  in  the  serai  at  Amritsar.  They  were  still 
red-cheeked  and  cheerful,  still  wrapped  in  their 
north-country  wadded  clothes  on  that  warm  morn- 
ing, and  they  showed  proudly  their  Cook  coupon 
ticket  for  the  pilgrim-ship  and  further  journey  to 
Mecca.  For  the  rest,  Bombay  was  a  European  city ; 
the  hotel  life,  the  teas,  the  drives,  all  of  the  West 
only.  It  was  hardly  India  to  us,  save  as  Delhi  Jew- 
elers salaamed  in  recognition  and  sang  to  us  be- 
seechingly: "Please  buy  my  niklass.  Please  take 
that  griddle." 

We  had  but  a  few  days  to  wait  for  the  ship  to 
Ismailia,— hot  days,  when  the  thermometer  stood  at 
90°  for  hours;  a  haze  hung  over  the  ocean,  and  the 
evening  drives  to  the  Breach  of  Kandy  and  Malabar 
Hill  were  none  too  refreshing.  All  Bombay  turned 
out  of  doors  at  sunset,  to  drive,  to  walk  at  the  edge 
of  the  ocean,  to  linger  by  the  band-stands  long  af- 
ter dark.  The  groups  of  white-clad  Mohammedans 
gathered  together  to  pray  and  to  listen  to  the  Koran, 
and  the  groups  of  Parsis  playing  cards  by  elec- 
tric light  as  they  sat  on  the  grass  by  the  Queen's 
statue,  were  the  sharpest  pictures  in  memory  after 
Bombay  and  the  mainland  hills  had  faded  on  the 
horizon,  and  one  turned  gratefully  toward  lands 
where  it  is  not  always  afternoon, 

"Did  you  enjoy  India?"  my  friends  continued  to 
ask  me,  with  unhappy  choice  of  words;  and,  to  be 
literal,  the  answer  could  only  be  negative. 


BOMBAY  391 

"What  impressed  you  most?"  To  that  it  was 
easy  to  answer :  "What  England  has  done  for  India ; 
the  incalculable  debt  all  that  continent  of  diverse 
peoples  owes  for  the  just,  intelligent,  humane  rule 
of  the  Great  White  Queen  and  her  son ;  for  the  trea- 
sure of  noble  lives  poured  into  the  peninsula  for  a 
century,  for  the  burdens  the  white  man  has  borne." 
If  all  the  people  should  gather  daily,  like  the  mul- 
titudes praying  on  the  Ganges  bank  at  Benares, 
salaam  toward  England,  and  chant  their  acknowledg- 
ments, it  would  be  fitting;  but  one  discovers  an 
ingratitude  of  dependencies  degrees  blacker  than 
that  of  republics. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abu,    Mount,    358,    361,    362,  Auckland,  Lord,  98,  192,  217 

375  Audience-halls,  194,   195,  216, 

Abu  Koads,  357,  362  328,  351 

Afghanistan,    279,    280,    281,  Aurangzeb,  195 

284  Austin  de  Bordeaux,  194 
Afghans,   259,   260,   262,   280, 

296  Bahadur  Shah,  228 

Afridi,    277,    281,    282,    283,  Bandy,  35,  40 

286  Banian-tree,  12,  98 

Agra,  182,  185-201,  210,  333,  Bazaars,    166,    181,    244,    247, 

342,  343  248,  250,  261,  263,  304,  305, 

Ahmedabad,    362-367  347,  364 

Akbar,  194,  202,  203,  204,  206,  Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  278 

212,  218,  227,  228,  229,  230,  Beggars,    250,    253,    267,   304, 

243,  255,  258,  260,  299,  341  381,  390 

AU  Masjid,  261,  292,  293  Benares,  150-176 

Allahabad  Pioneer,  94  Bengali,  101,  102 

Altamsh,  234  Bhattiprolu,  80,  120 

Alwar,  323-333  Bhor  Ghat,  377,  382 

Ambala,  313,  321  Bichauna,  239 

Amber,  344,  353,  354  Blavatsky,  Mme.,  81,  320 

Amraoti,  99,  141  Bodhi-druma,   116,  273 

Amritsar,   298-311  Bogie-car,  368 

Ananda,   119  Bokhara,    253,   265,   271,    285, 

Acarkali,  243  304,  390 

Annanbag   Gardens,   167,   168  Bombay,  369,  383-390 

Arizona,  377  Bo-tree,    116,    118,    119,    120, 

Arjuna,  75  129,  133-142,  273 

Armor,  80,  329  Brahman,   16,   24,   29,  42,   45, 

Arnold,   Sir  Edwin,  355,  356,  48,   49,   129,   154,   155,   167, 

389  352 

Art  industries,  166,  221,  242,  Brahm-Gaya,  125,  134 

347,   364  Brasses,  166 

Art  schools,  242,  347,  364  Bright,  John,  32 

Aryan,  260  Brooks,  Phillips,  69 

Ash  picking,  8,  9  Bucephalus,  282 

Asoka,  116,  120,  136,  137,  138,  Buckingham  Canal,  69,  70 

141,  142,  227  Buddha,  74,  80,  90,  100,  116- 

Attock,  258,  260,  295  120,  163,  168,  227,  358,  374 

395 


396  INDEX 

Buddha-Gaya,     126,     129-147,  Dancers,  59,  60,  61,  235,  236, 

273  237,  348,  352,  355 

Buddhism,  esoteric,  320  Daniel,  Samuel,  22,  23,  29,  34, 

Budgery  boats,  69,  75  47,  48 

Burma,  89,  90,  139,  140,  141,  Darjiling,  105,  109,  110,  317, 

145,  146,  147  318 

Delhi,  213-226 

Cable,  George  W,,  241  Diamond  Throne,  the,  136 

Calcutta,  86-101  Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  193,  280 

Camels,    221,    228,    273,    279,  Dilwarra    temples,    358,    361, 

281,  289,  293,  294,  306  362 

Caravans,  272,  279,  293,  295  Dindigal,  21,  22 

Carpenter's   Cave,   374,   375  Diver,   submarine,   85 

Carpets,    193,    307,    309,    310,  Dogs,  railway  rules  for,  257 

330,  343  Dravidian  architecture,  15,  24, 

Caste,  103  31,  42,  373 

Caste-marks,    10,    16,    31,    45,  Drawing-room,   the  Viceregal, 

107,  145,  150  97 

Cats,  Persian,  268  Durbar,  225,  226,  228 
Caves,  76,  132,  370,  373,  374, 

378,  381,  389  Edward  VII,  King,  226 

Cawnpore,   181,   182  Edwards,  Sir  H.,  263,  283 

Chandni  Chauk,  215,  228,  244,  Elephanta,  caves  of,  389 

263  Elephants,  17,  18,  24,  33,  90, 

Chaturgam  Lai,  150,  156,  171,  328,  330,  336,  339,  340,  341, 

172  342,  344,  352,  353,  354,  355 

Cheroots,  22  EUenborough,  Lord,  192 

Chetah,  330  Ellora,  370,  373,  374,  375 

Chidambram,  34-63  Elphinstone,   General,    283 

Chota  Hazri,  11  Enfield  rifle,  280 

Christmas,  75,  89  Everest,  Mount,  111,  112,  113 
Cingalese  texts,  120,  123 

Conjeveram,  64  Fahien,  132,  139,  164,  273 

Connaught,  Duke  of,  345  Fakirs,  157,  158,  166 

Cormorin,  Cape,  260  Falconer,  264 

Coromandel  Coast,  70  Fatehpur   Sikri,    203-212 

Councils,  Buddhist,  120,  138  Fergusson,     Sir    James,     196, 

Crawford,  Marion,  94,  320  209,  217,  233 

Cremation,  158,  161  Firozabad,  227 

Cross,  the  Southern,  79  Flaxman,  32 

Cunningham,      General,      131,  Forward   Party,   the,   284 

138,    141,   242  Frontier,  the  Northwest,  276, 

Curzon,  Lady,  97  277,  281,  282 

Curzon,  Lord,  97,  98,  226,  276,  Fuel,  11 

279,  355  Fuller,  Loie,  236 

Dak   bangla,    11,    18,    35,    36,  Gadsbvs,  the,  241,  320 

38,  72,  125,   126,  298,  323,  Gandamak,  treaty  of,  283 

324,  358  Ganesha,  23,  76 


INDEX  397 

Ganges,  86,  105,  153  Jasmine  Tower,  194,  195,  342 

Gaya,  124,  125  Jats,  192,  193,  195 

Gboom,  109  Jehad,  281 

Gbor  Kattri,  the,  273  Jellalabad,  275 

Golden  Mosque,  253  Jewels,  17,  25,  26,  51,  52,  53, 

Golden  Temple,  300,  303  54,    64,    71,    222,    223,    224, 

Gopis,  74,  76,  97  268,  305,  329 

Gopura,  15,  24,  31,  41  Jeypore,  344-355 

Granth,  303  Jinrikisha,  318,  357 

Grapes,   272,    294 

Greco-Buddhist    art,    80,    178,  Kabul,  264,  265,  272,  290,  293 

242  Kadam,  280,  291 

Guides,  22,  23,  177,  204,  205,  Kafila,  272 

378,  381  Kafirs,  277 

Gujaek,  248,  272  Kailas,  the,  373,  374,  376 

GuUstan,  328  Kalka,  313,  317,  321 

Gwalior,  335-343  Kalyan,  377 

Kandahar,  273 

Hair-cutting,   ceremonial,    201  Kanishka,  120,  273 

Hauksbee,  Mrs.,  2^1,  320  Kapilavastu,   117,  119 

Himalayas,  107,  112,  113,  278,  Karli,  378,  381 

313,  318  Kashmir,   298,   300,   305,   309, 
Hindu  Kush,  258,  276,  278  310 

Hiouen  Thsang,  123,  131,  139,  Kasyapa,  119 

273  Khairabad,   259,  295 

Hobson,  228  Khan,  Colonel  Islam,  289 

Hong  Kong,  299  Khusru,  229 

Horse-dealers,  272,  317  Khyber   Pass,    261,    272,    279, 
Hotels,  65,  86,  87,  93,  94,  177,        280,  281,  289-295 

213,  313,  318,  319,  345,  383  Khyber  Rifles,  289 

Humayum,  227,  228  Kim,    the    Rishti,    242,    247, 
Hunter,  Sir  William,  241  304,  312,  319 

Hyderabad,  323  Kineob,   167,   364 

Kipling,     Rudyard,     94,     239, 
Indrapat,   227  240,  242,  244,  260,  262,  285, 

Indus,  258,  259  296,  319,  320,  321 

Isaacs,  Mr.,  319,  320  Kite-flying,  254 

I 'tamadu-daulah,  199  Koh-i-nur,  216,  230,  242,  291, 

299 

Jade,  217,  223,  254,  305,  306  Koran,    218 

Jahangir,  212,  242,  249,  255  Krishna,  74 

Jahanira,  195,  229  Kunehinjinga,   108,   112,   113 

Jails,  274,  330,  343  Kutab  n'linar,  227,  233,  234 
Jains,  221,  358,  361,  362,  363, 

373,  375  Ladak,  254 

Jakko,  319,  321  Lahore,  239-255,  261 

Jama   Masjid,   218,   229,   248,  Lalla  Rookh,  255 

340  Lawrence,  Henry,  180,  283 

Japanese,  146,  225,  333  Levee,  the  viceregal,  97 


398 


INDEX 


Light  of  Asia,  the,  130,  148 
Lockhart,  General,  284 
Lonauli,  378,  382 
Lucknow,  177-182 
Luggage,  114,  115,  149 
Lundi  Khana,  280,  281 
Lundi  Kotal,  281,  289 
Lytton,  Lord,  226 


Macaulay,  T.  B.,  241 
Madras,  65,  66,  80-85 
Madura,  10-18 
Maghada,   116,   117 
Magistrate,  39 
Magyar,   299 
Mahabalipur,  73,  370 
Mahabodhi,  116,  129 
Maharaja    of    Benares,     175, 

176 
Maharaja     of     Sindhia,     192, 

336    342 
Mahatma,   167,   172,   228,   320 
Mahrattas,   215,  336,  341 
Manaar,  Gulf  of,  3 
Manure  cakes,  11 
Massoula-boats,  84 
Mayo  College,  327 
Meean  Mir,  247 
Mecca,  116,  181,  209,  267,  390 
Michni  Pass,  282,  286 
Midway  Plaisance,  60 
Mirza  Jahangir,   229 
Mission  Avork,  16,  30 
Moguls,  194 
Molla,  267,  283 
Monkey,  167,  218 
Moses,  264 

Mosque,   181,   195,  196,  363 
Miiller,  Max,  123,  241 
Mumtaz-i-Mahal,      189,      195, 

199,  212,  229 
Museums,    80,    99,    178,    241, 

347 
Mussaffirkhana,  335 
Mutiny,    the,    178,    179,    180, 

182,  215,  217,  225,  228,  299 
Mutton.  218 


Nadir    Shah,    215,    217,    230, 

258,  291 
Nandgaon,  369,  370 
Nankow  Pass,  292 
Napoleon,  284 
Native  states,  323,  324 
Nautch  dance,  59,  60,  61,  71, 

236,  348,  352,  355 
Nawab,   the  bogus,   345,  346, 

347,  378 
Nepal,  113 
Newspapers,  94 
Nicholson,  John,  263,  283 
Nirvana,   118,    133,    139,    145, 

148 
Nizam,  the,  284,  323,  375 
Nur    Jahan,    or    Nur    Mahal, 

199,   212,   255 


Opium,  348 

Oven,  of  India,  247,  263 

Pachisi,  206 

Pagan,  90 

Pagodas,  the  Seven,  67 

Palaces,  12,  96,  175,  194,  195, 

204,  205,  206,  327,  328,  329, 

339,  351,  354 
Pali,  120,  123 
Palk  Strait,  3 

Parsis,  99,  384,  385,  386,  390 
Pathans,  260,  264,  290 
Pattu  Thacheadar,  56,  62,  63 
Peacock  Throne,  216,  217,  218, 

228,   230 
Pegu,  90 
Persia,  285 

Peshawar,    242,    254,    260-275 
Peter  the  Great,  285 
Phalgu  Eiver,  129,  148 
Philistines,  192,  196 
Phulkari,  268 
Pie,  278 
Pigeons,  230 
Finns   longifolia,   314 
Piprawah,  99,  117,  120 
Pipul-troo,  133,  134,  274 


INDEX 


399 


Poona,  377 

Pop-corn,   :^71 

Population,   101 

Poultry,  218 

Povindahs,  272 

Prince  of  Wales,  26,  193,  217 

Races,  96 

Railways,  9,  10,  104,  106,  114, 

115,  182,  256,  257,  334,  368, 

369,  377,  382 
Rajput,    117,   327,   354,  358 
Ramnuggur,  175 
Rangoon,  90,  228,  272 
Razais,  37 
Relics    of    Buddha,    99,    117, 

120 
Residency,  Lucknow,  179,  180 
Rhinoceros,   94,   341,   351 
Rhys  Davids,  Dr.,  123 
* '  Rickshaw. ' '     See  Jinrikisha 
Roaches,  3,  76,  90 
Roberts,  Lord,  181,  225,  263 
Rock   sculptures,    73,    74,    75, 

340,  370,  373,  374,  375,  378, 

389       - 
Rugs,  268 

Runjeet  Singh,  248,  299 
Russian     advance,     the,     248, 

277,  284,  285 

Sadi,  229 

Safdar  Jang,  233 

Safed  Koh,  259,  275 

Saints,   206,   267,  274,  283 

Samarkand,  265,  268,  271 

Samovar,  265 

Sanchi,   toran   of,   99,    142 

Sanskrit,   120,   123 

Schwartz,  32 

Scythian,  264 

Secundra,   203 

Selim  Chisti,  206,  207 

Serai,  273,  390 

Servants,  150 

Shah    Jahan,    194,    212,    216, 

227    229    249 
Shalimar  Gardens,   254 


Shanghai,  299 

Shere  Ali,  282 

Shish  Mahal,  328 

Shiva,   15,  41,   163,  166,  373, 

376,   378,   389 
Shoes,  266 
Sieges,   179,   180 
Sikhs,  242,  244,  249,  298,  299, 

300 
Simla,   95,   241,   312,   318-321 
Sinnett,  A.  P.,  94,  320 
Snakes,  150,  389 
Solon,  317,  321 
Soorajbux,  327,  333 
Southey,  74 
Sowar,  280 
Srirangam,  23,  24 
Steele,   Mrs.  F.  A.,   149,   182, 

225,  241 
Sujata,  118 

Swamji,  167,  168,  171,   172 
Sweetmeats,   248,  267,  272 

Taj  Mahal,  185-194,  210,  227, 

229,  300,  333,  342,  343 
Tamils,  7 
Tanjore,  30-33 
Telegraphs,  7,  8,  34 
Telephone,  83 
Temple,  Sir  R.,  283 
Teppa  Kulam,  12 
Theosophists,   64,   81 
Thorvaldsen,  75 
Thugs,  37 

Tibet,  108,  110,  111 
Tiger,  146 

Tonga,  313,  370,  377 
Tottenham   Court   Road,   249 
Towers  of  Silence,  386 
Tramp,  33 
Triehinopoli,  22,  23 
Tughlak,  227,  235 
Turbans,   336 
Turquoise,  112,  223,  254 
Tuticorin,  4,  7,  8 

Unicorn,  341,  351 
Uruwcla,    117,    118 


400  INDEX 

Vazir  Khan,  Mosque  of,  250      Waziris,   277 

Vedas,  154,  171,  328  Weddings,  221,  322,  348,  384, 

Vereshehagin,    V.,    199,  209,       385 

263,  264  Whisky,    "Green   Seal,"   318 
Viceroy,  95,  96,  98,  218 

Vihara,  273,  374,  381  Yarkand,  254,  304 

Warburton,  Colonel,  284,  286, 

289  Zanzamah,  the,   242 

Waterloo,  284  Zenana,    206,    212,    329,    330, 

Waxwork,  Afghan,  271  351 


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